Sharp Objects: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Camille leaves Jackie’s house, still reeling from the information she’s just received. She wonders whether Adora was ever sick as a child—or whether Marian was truly sick throughout her own childhood. She wonders, too, about Amma’s “sicknesses”—she is uncertain of whether Amma is really sick and in need of Adora’s medicine, or if the medicine is what’s making Amma sick in the first place. She wonders about her own sickness this morning—whether Adora’ blue pill made her vomit, or lessened the effects she would’ve felt without it.

Camille wants to call Richard, but is unsure of what to tell him. As she drives through town, she finds herself heading for a bar at the edge of town, near the hog farm. There, she finds a clearly-intoxicated John Keene. When she asks how he’s doing, he replies that he’s afraid both that Meredith will leave him and that he’ll soon be arrested for two murders he didn’t commit.

John tells Camille she’s the only one who understands him, and asks her about her own dead sister—whether she’s gotten over it, and how one moves on. Camille admits that she has been “ruined” by Marian’s death, and feels relief at being able to say so. John tells Camille that he didn’t kill Natalie, and she tells him that she already knows. John takes Camille’s hand and tells her that she’s beautiful.

In the parking lot, John fumbles with his keys, but then realizes he is too drunk to drive. Camille, who is not much more sober, drives John back to Meredith’s but once they get there, John asks her to take him to a nearby motel. Camille obliges, and even pays for the room—inside, she hands John a cup of water, and he spots one of the scars on her wrists. He takes her arm and rolls her sleeve up despite her protests; once he sees a scar that reads “weary,” he admits he feels the same, and asks to see them all.

John pulls Camille’s clothes off, and reads her scars word by word. He touches and kisses them, and soon he and Camille begin having sex. It is the first time in fourteen years that she has allowed a man to see her body.

Early the next morning, there is a knock at the door. Chief Vickery’s voice calls from the other side—he asks if Camille is inside and demands she open up. Camille and John begin dressing frantically. When Camille opens the door, Vickery is there—and so is Richard. As he surveys the situation, he glares at Camille and tells her that Adora put in a call when Camille failed to come home for the night. Richard offers to take John home, but John says he’d like for Camille to take him. As Richard and Vickery walk away, Camille shouts after Richard, promising to call him later—Richard simply waves a hand over his shoulder.

Camille drops John off at his parents’ house, and he tells her that she “saved” him. Camille tells John that he made her feel safe, too, and is surprised to find that she means it. Camille drives back to Main Street and goes into the police station, where she finds Richard and begins attempting to “deny deny deny.” Richard, though, can see through her lies, and warns her that her sleeping with John looks bad for both of them. In order to apologize, Camille gets down on her knees and begins unzipping Richard’s pants, but he tells her that “that won’t do it,” and kisses her gently before asking her to leave.

Camille naps in her car for a few hours—she is terrified to return home to Adora’s house. She decides that she’ll try to continue working on her story, even in her disheveled and miserable state. She drives to her old friend Katie Lacey’s house—Katie is an aide at the grade school, and helped out in both Ann and Natalie’s classes. Katie greets Camille happily and serves her sweet tea, making no mention of Camille’s harried appearance. She offers to make Camille some lunch, but Camille gets right down to business asking questions about Ann and Natalie’s history of violence. Katie reveals that Ann once stabbed Natalie in the cheek with a sewing needle, but that there didn’t seem to be a reason behind the attack—“those two […] didn’t need a reason to strike out,” Katie says.

Katie begins reminiscing about her and Camille’s own high school years—and the way they bullied their less-popular classmates. Katie remarks that Amma is even worse than the two of them were in high school—she and her three friends “rule the school,” and Amma is their ringleader. They force other girls into sex, and humiliate their female classmates for being fat, flat-chested, or anything in-between; anything not perfect. Camille is shocked to hear the depths of Amma’s cruelty, and is even more upset when Katie reveals that “Amma fucked with Ann and Natalie a lot.”

As Camille heads for home after interviewing Katie, she can’t stop flashing from image to image of Adora—all ominous ones. She imagines her mother trying to “tend” to Ann and Natalie the way she tended to Marian and Amma—and though Camille tells herself that she’s “crazy” to think what she’s thinking, she also knows she’d be crazy not to.