Wendell
- Okay, so clearly this book is on a new narrator kick because Chapter 3 gives us a new bloke in town: Wendell. And sadly, Wendell's story has a heartbreaker of an opening.
- Wendell's phone rings in the middle of the night, and it reminds him of two sad things:
- Sad Thing 1: His son was "shot like a dog in the street" and poor Wendell heard about the news with a phone call (1.1).
- Sad Thing 2: Wendell's wife died in a car crash last year. And how did Wendell find out about that horrible news? Yep, another phone call.
- So Wendell doesn't have a positive association with phone calls, and we can see why.
- When Ana calls Wendell, he rushes up to her apartment. And based on the fact that Ana wants Wendell to look at the wilting plants through her binoculars, we now know that this is the same Ana from Chapter 2.
- So Wendell is looking at these wilted leaves and figures out that they're bean plants. Apparently, Wendell lived on a Kentucky farm before he moved to Cleveland and started working as a school janitor, so he knows all about planting beans. Ana doesn't know diddlysquat, but she sure is determined to make sure those bean plants don't die. Well, that only seems fair, since she was the one to kill them.
- Since Kim hasn't been around to water the plants, Ana orders Wendell to do it. When he goes down to water the leaves, Wendell realizes that the fridge has been keeping the beans alive, despite the cold weather. He also makes this neat ring shape around the plants so that they take on more water.
- While Wendell is watering the plants, he encounters Kim. She looks pretty frightened to have a stranger at her plants. But later that day, Wendell realizes that Kim has copied his dirt rings. This inspires Wendell to start his own little garden within the vacant lot. Looks like Kim's idea is catching on.