How It All Goes Down
- In her last letter, Eva reveals that because Kevin was three months shy of his sixteenth birthday, he got a more lenient sentence as a minor: only seven years.
- Eva also says that, three months after the murder, she visited Kevin in prison.
- Kevin tells Eva that he left her alive for "revenge" (28.18). But for what, we don't know.
- Then Kevin pulls out a trophy he kept: Celia's eyeball.
- Eva tells Kevin never to show her that again. And he never does.
- It's the two-year anniversary of Kevin's crime.
- Kevin will soon be eighteen, which means he'll be transferred to big-boy prison.
- And Kevin is scared. It might be the only time Eva has seen Kevin show emotion like that.
- Eva asks Kevin one last time why he killed everyone. Actually, she demands it. "Look me in the eye, and tell me why" (28.50).
- Kevin says, "I used to think I knew. […] Now I'm not so sure" (28.52).
- Then Kevin slides something across the table: it's a box with Celia's eye in it.
- Kevin tells Eva not to open it. Just to bury it.
- Eva hugs Kevin goodbye, and he says something to her, something that, to her, sounds like "I'm sorry."
- So Eva says, "I'm sorry, too, Kevin. I'm sorry, too" (28.67).
- At the end of her letter, Eva tells us that the civil trial ended up in her favor, but she still had to pay court costs.
- Eva is happy with that. She has to sell the house she hates to cover it, and that feels cleansing.
- Eva concludes the letter by saying that she felt nothing when Kevin was born. But "if only out of desperation or even laziness" (28.72), she now loves him.
- One day, Kevin will be out of jail, and Eva has a second bedroom all ready in her apartment for him.
- Eva signs off, "Forever your loving wife, Eva" (28.73).