Goodbye Days

Chapter 26 consists of a brief internal monologue as Carver reflects on the fact that he sometimes forgets his friends are dead. He compares the pain of realizing they’re gone with phantom limb syndrome, a phenomenon in which people who have lost a limb feel pain where the lost limb would be. He concludes: “I have a trinity of phantoms” (233).

Carver and Jesmyn are studying at the library. Jesmyn seems upset. The reason becomes clear when she asks if he’s been telling people that they’re hooking up. He tells her no, which is the truth, and suggests that Adair may be spreading the rumor.

Jesmyn is in a bad mood for another reason. She is preparing to audition for Juilliard, a top music school, and struggling with her audition piece. She reveals that she has synesthesia, a condition in which one sense triggers another. In her case, when she plays or hears music, she sees colors. When she plays the song, it should “sound” blue, but she says it’s a yellow-green. Carver asks her what color his voice is, and she ponders the question and tells him it is “bullshit colored.