Who's Fault?

Question: Why does Rowdy tell Arnold, “You killed her” (211)? Is there truth to this statement?

Answer: Rowdy believes that it is Arnold’s fault that one of his closest friends, and Arnold’s sister, died. He thinks that since Arnold decided to stand out, and not follow everyone else’s paths, Arnold pushed his sister to change her life as well, and so she left the reservation, got married, and moved away before her family could even say good bye. At her new home, she and her husband got drunk at a party in their trailer and passed out in the bedroom. Everyone forgot about them and left. They had forgotten to turn off the hot plate, and the hot plate touched the curtain, which began to burn. Eventually, the trailer burned down, but they were too drunk to even feel it. Rowdy believes that since it was Arnold who started the entire chain, it was his fault.

When Arnold is told his sister died, despite their love, his way of coping with the pain is laughter. He laughs and laughs and laughs, until he sees Rowdy. Since he and Rowdy were fighting, they had been avoiding each other, but Rowdy had been unable to resist coming to Arnold’s sister’s funeral. He didn’t want to be seen, so he hid in the forest. When Arnold ran back there to escape the depression of the memorial service, he banged into Rowdy, who was crying. This was the first time Arnold had ever seen Rowdy crying, and he stopped in shock. Then he stood in shock for a moment, before saying, “Rowdy, you’re crying” (209). Rowdy denied that he was crying, and said that Arnold was crying, not him. When Arnold didn’t fall for it, he reached out to place a comforting hand on Rowdy’s shoulder. Rowdy was angry, and though he attempted to, he swung and missed at Arnold, unable to hit his former best friend. Arnold was even more surprised by blunder, and laughed. Rowdy looked up with hurt in his eyes, and told Arnold, “You killed her” (p. 211). Only then did Arnold stop his laughter and absorb this new opinion. ‘Had he killed her?’ he wondered to himself. If he hadn’t left to go to the new school, would his sister still be safe at home, living in his basement? 

Slowly, Arnold began to blame himself for his sister’s death. He started to think that if he hadn’t left the reservation first, his sister wouldn’t have either. Arnold began to think it was his fault.

I think that it wasn’t Arnold’s fault, because the reason his sister had left was because she wanted to escape. Seeing Arnold change his future made her realize she didn’t want to stay on the reservation forever. It was smart of her to move, though she didn’t make the right decision of how to get out. This was her fault. If she hadn’t gotten that drunk in the first place, she wouldn’t have died. This was her fault. If the people at the party hadn’t forgotten and left their hosts in danger, she wouldn’t have died. This was the people attending the parties faults. In all, there were  several people to blame for his sister’s death, but Arnold was not one of them. 

~Mila