Medicine Walk

Eldon and Angie work in logging camps until she becomes pregnant with Frank, and they move to a cabin on a lake. Frank senses that Eldon was afraid to be a father, and Eldon agrees. Eldon felt ashamed of what he did to Jimmy and his own mother: “I was ashameda myself, Frank. Bone deep ashamed” (220). Eldon was also afraid that he was too weak to be a father:

I wanted to be strong for her. I really did. But layin’ there knowin’ how weak I really was brung on the dark in me. The dark that always sucked me back into drinkin’ (220).

Eldon starts to drink again and isn’t there when Angie goes into labor. Angie dies as a result. The doctor says, “She had a chance if she had made it here on time” (222). Eldon only knows one way to “quiet” (222) his pain: He drinks even more and becomes the mess of a man Frank encounters in adulthood.

Frank is angry with Eldon. Because of Eldon, Frank will never get to see or know his mother. Eldon wanted Bunky to raise Frank because Frank reminded Eldon too much of Angie. Eldon tells Frank that he was named after Benjamin Franklin because of Franklin’s experiment with electricity: “Took courage […] to want something for others like that” (231).