Course Hero. "Walk Two Moons Study Guide." Course Hero. 23 Aug. 2017. Web. 21 July 2018. <https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Walk-Two-Moons/>.
Course Hero. (2017, August 23). Walk Two Moons Study Guide. In Course Hero. Retrieved July 21, 2018, from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Walk-Two-Moons/
(Course Hero, 2017)
Course Hero. "Walk Two Moons Study Guide." August 23, 2017. Accessed July 21, 2018. https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Walk-Two-Moons/.
Course Hero, "Walk Two Moons Study Guide," August 23, 2017, accessed July 21, 2018, https://www.coursehero.com/lit/Walk-Two-Moons/.
Sal continues telling her story. The day after Phoebe's mother leaves, Phoebe tells Sal to spend the next night at her house. Mr. Birkway gives the students fifteen seconds to draw something without thinking, telling them, "Draw your soul." Sal and Ben draw exactly the same thing: a circle with a maple leaf inside.
Continuing her story, Sal describes spending the night with Phoebe, who is extremely jumpy. She says she can't go to school because she's sick, and her father tells her not to "malinger." Phoebe and Prudence struggle to complete their daily routines without Mrs. Winterbottom's help. Sal is reminded of the confusion and sadness in her own house after her mother left. At school Phoebe tells the other students her mother went away to London. Sal understands Phoebe's lies, irritation, and desperation to find some explanation for her mother's absence, because she behaved the same way after her mother left.
Phoebe searches her house for "evidence that the lunatic has been [there] and dragged [her] mother off." That night, the family eats food that Mrs. Winterbottom prepared, froze, and labeled prior to her departure. Mr. Winterbottom tells Phoebe that if her mother had been kidnapped, she wouldn't have been able to prepare and store meals.
Sal's father tells her that Sugar had the right to leave and left because she wanted to. He says "she intended to come back," but unpredictable things happen. They sit on the porch together, "two people being completely miserable and lost."
The unspoken connection between Ben and Sal is symbolized by the fact that they spontaneously draw the exact same symbol for Mr. Birkway's assignment. For Sal, the maple leaf is connected to her mother: her mother's Indian name, Chanhassen, means "sweet tree juice" or "maple sugar." Sal' mother is indeed part of her soul, and the fact that she puts the maple leaf in a circle symbolizes her desire to hold onto her mother and her regrets about not having prevented her from leaving.
When Mrs. Winterbottom disappears, Sal watches Phoebe go through the exact same things she went through after Sugar left. Because she has had the same experience, she is very empathetic and patient with Phoebe. Phoebe still doesn't know anything about Sal's mother; Sal has never opened up about her mother to any of the people she meets in Euclid, Ohio. But it is obvious that Phoebe feels emotionally safe with Sal since she practically demands that Sal stay at her house. This is an example of dramatic irony: both the reader and Sal are aware that Sal has lost her mother, but Phoebe is unaware of this fact—even though it is the most important fact in Sal's life.