Study Guide

We Need to Talk About Kevin Chapter 14: January 6, 2001

By Lionel Shriver

Chapter 14: January 6, 2001

Eva recalls a few details of her trial, like when the attorney asked if Eva ever worried about what Kevin did in other family's homes.
"Frankly, other children rarely asked Kevin over more than once" (14.11), Eva responds.
Eva talks about how Kevin never seemed affected by violence, as if he were born desensitized to it.
Then Eva tells the story of Kevin's first gun: a squirt gun.
During the move, Kevin loves squirting the movers in the pants and making fun of them for peeing themselves. Charming.
Eva tries to discipline Kevin, but Franklin undermines her, saying that Kevin is just having fun.
In the new house, Eva hides the squirt gun in a kitchen cabinet. When she finds Kevin climbing up to get it, she calls Franklin in because she isn't tall enough to get Kevin.
Franklin, of course, thinks Kevin earned the gun back by making such a death-defying climb.
Eva gives the gun back. That night, she wears a white dress, and Kevin fills his gun with grape juice.
Later, Eva decorates her office with world maps she has collected.
Kevin doesn't understand why, so Eva tries to explain that the maps are special to her. Kevin thinks they're dumb junk, and that she's dumb for putting them up.
Eva leaves to answer the phone, and when she returns, Kevin has ruined the maps by squirting them with red and black ink.
"Now […] it's special," he says (14.92).
Eva snatches the gun and stomps it to bits.