This chapter-by-chapter summary contains plot spoilers!

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Atonement by Ian McEwan Pages 41 - 60

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(Brought to you by jat impatientreader.com) Briony is irritated because Jackson, one of her cousins, has wet the bed and is now being forced to wash the sheets himself under the supervision of Briony's mother Betty. Briony doesn't want to lose any rehearsal time for the play, but there's nothing she can do to prevent it. She tries to instruct Jackson's brother, Pierrot, in the proper way to state a question during the play, but she doesn't make much progress there either.

Meanwhile, Lola comes in and does her lines and manages to coach her brother at the same time. Briony is suspicious of her older cousin. When she finally is alone, she contemplates her hands and their purpose and whether or not she is in control of them or vice-versa. She also wonders if everyone is as "alive" as she is, thinking and feeling the same way that she does. She's offended that none of the rehearsals have gone as she's planned, and wonders if she should have just read a story for her brother Leon and left it at that.

She walks to the window of the nursery and sees the interaction between Cecilia and Robbie Turner, Cecilia undressing and going into the fountain. She falls back and contemplates what she just witnessed, and how she'll think about it in the future, and how she'll remember it. She looks out the window again but sees nothing there.

Cecilia manages to fix the vase, and runs into Briony in the hallway, who looks like she's about to start crying. Cecilia asks her what's wrong, but the only thing Briony says is that "it's the wrong genre", and runs away. Cecilia puts the flowers back in the vase and goes to see if Briony is still close, but she sees her walking away from the house.

She also sees Robbie Turner leaving, but then meeting up with two other people moving down the road towards the house. She lights up a cigarette and sees that her brother Leon has arrived, with a boy named Paul Marshall in tow. She goes to hug him, greets Paul, and tells Leon that their mother is lying down in a dark room with a migraine headache.
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