I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Chapter 27 Summary

  • Helene comes to B ward.
  • Carla and Deborah are happy for Helene and take her to the craft shop. Deborah is very motivated to accompany Helene there because she remembers how some of the staff at the craft shop judge those who come from D ward, and she doesn't want Helene to face that alone.
  • Carla finds a newspaper article about the former patient Carmen and brings it to Deborah.
  • Carmen shot herself in the head.
  • The news of Carmen's death upsets Deborah, because although she didn't know the patient long, she could see that Carmen had the potential to get better if she'd been left at the hospital for treatment.
  • Carla disagrees, but Deborah makes an argument that if your sickness has a hard hurt that caused it, you can get to the root of it and work through it. If you can't feel anything, and you're cold and dead inside, then maybe you can't be helped. Deborah argues that Carmen could have got to the root of her hard hurt.
  • Carla tells Deborah she's going to try to go out into the world again.
  • Deborah panics at the thought of being without her friend, but instead of retreating into Yr and getting angry about being abandoned, she acknowledges her emotions and her own fear of soon being ready to go out into the world herself.
  • Deborah gets a new roommate, and they get along.
  • Deborah continues to have a hunger for Earth, and she listens to the student nurses. She talks with them and ask them questions about their lives.
  • Deborah walks into town and observes everything she can.
  • Deborah joins two church choirs. She realizes that they know she is from the mental hospital, but she is trying to belong to groups. She deals with them ignoring her and tries to belong, anyway.
  • Deborah requests to leave the hospital.
  • When Deborah tells her new roommate about leaving, she recognizes the panic in her roommate's eyes. It's the same she must have shown to Carla.
  • A social worker from the mental hospital helps place Deborah in a rented room. Deborah's new landlady is Mrs. King. Mrs. King doesn't have the same prejudices against the mentally ill that Deborah has noticed in others. Deborah goes back to the hospital for dinners and therapy sessions.
  • In a therapy session with Dr. Fried, Deborah remembers when she was much younger, before she got sick. She also remembers a friend she had who is now in college and who wrote to her when they were in high school. Deborah had closed herself off so much that she didn't want to allow these connections.
  • Dr. Fried and Deborah discuss Yr. Dr. Fried gets Deborah to see that all the beauty in Yr is really made up of the beautiful parts of Deborah, and the Collect and the other negative parts of Yr are the criticisms of Deborah's own mind.
  • Carla and Deborah start to see each other in the outside world when Carla isn't busy with her new job as a lab technician. They still share a special closeness—until Deborah shows Carla her artwork.
  • Deborah assumes Carla gets distant when she mentions her art because her art documents her journey through the sickness. She decides to just drop the subject and focus on their friendship and other topics.
  • Deborah has a dream in which a voice shows her a bone buried deep in the snow. The voice tells her it's Carla's creativity buried deep inside of her.
  • When Deborah sees Carla the next day, she tells her about the dream, and it makes Carla cry. Carla admits that art was something she always wanted to try but was afraid to.
  • In therapy with Dr. Fried, Deborah discusses what happened with Carla, and Dr. Fried points out that Deborah's talent is real: she was able to access it and use it even when she was very sick. Carla was probably jealous for not having that same kind of outlet.
  • The session leaves Deborah hopeful that she can be a productive artist and a good friend. She also admits that she might not be poisonous.