Maria V. answers “I feel like I may have missed something,...”

Cate asked this question about Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood:

I feel like I may have missed something, but did Frank die? I know he was no longer around, and they didn't talk about it anymore, but did they kill him?

Maria V. <spoiler> I was just about to ask this question, I was so confused and bothered by this also. And it's also never brought up again or clarified!

This i…more<spoiler> I was just about to ask this question, I was so confused and bothered by this also. And it's also never brought up again or clarified!

This is the language in the book surrounding that scene where something (?) happens to Frank, although whether they get him arrested, killed, or some other guess by the reader... we don't know:

pg 156 -- Chiara is on the phone with Frank and tells him not to go to the cops, and that they'll give him his passport. She hangs up the phone and makes eye contact with Bhajan, who "has no idea what's going on."

pg. 157 -- Bhajan comes home and the lights are out for some reason. Chiara is with dad in the kitchen and tells her to go straight upstairs. She hears a primal wail coming from her mother downstairs. Bhajan "has no idea what is happening"
She remembers when they were kids and Chiara would bait Frank, "teasing him forward... making him forget caution, forget to watch her. In the second he rushed forward, arm swinging, she dodged cleverly, and it's him that got hurt."
(No info except that memory... apparently Chiara baited him somehow?)

pg. 160 "We never talk about that night, or my brother again, and I know better than to ask. Some secrets are unspeakable. The gymnastics meet... when I was twelve, is the last time I will ever see Frank."

Talk about unsatisfying.

There's no mention of him later in the book except to say she misses him. </spoiler>(less)

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Cate Okay, thank you for including those quotes! I had been listening to the audiobook, thought I missed something but that it would come up later, and the ...more
Jul 17, 2021 09:18AM · flag

Zoe Zuniga Cause she couldn't just come right out and say her sister and father shot and buried her brother in the woods. the publishers wouldnt allow it. ...more
Jan 02, 2025 08:13PM · flag

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