Esther seeks directions to go to Deer Island. She weeps a few honest tears, and she finally gets the proper instructions. Before Esther's father died, the family lived on this island. It was an island then, but it is now connected to the mainland. Only a prison is out there now. Esther meets a guard and ponders how her life would be if she'd married him and had a large family. As she sits by the sea, a small annoying boy comes up to talk to her. She is about to bribe him to go away when his mother calls. Esther is left to think about a cold sea death. But as the icy water reaches her ankles, she winces and picks up her things and leaves.
Chapter 13 begins with another beach scene. This time, Esther is lying on a brightly colored towel beside a boy named Cal. She thinks that her mother telephoned Jody and that's how this blind date was arranged. Cal is discussing what appears to be an Ibsen play; the chapter begins with Cal saying, "Of course his mother killed him."
Esther, however, is only interested in the play because there is a mad character in it, and she remarks, "Everything I had ever read about mad people stuck in my mind, while everything else flew out." Cal is intrigued with his "Yes" interpretation of the play while Esther wants only to know what the mother is going to use to kill the son. (She remembers, of course, but she wants Cal to say it — another case of Esther's intellectual dishonesty — "morphia powders.") Then Esther asks Cal how he would kill himself if he were going to do it. He says that he'd blow his brains out with a gun. This disappoints Esther because his answer is "just like a man," and she knows that she can't get a gun. She then reviews all the pro's and con's of using a gun and decides against that.
