Back on land, the old fisherman carries Edward “atop his left shoulder as if he were a conquering hero” (61). The fisherman, named Lawrence, talks to Edward as if he’s real, saying, “You’ll like Nellie, you will […] She’s had her sadness, but she’s an all-right girl” (61).

Edward looks out at the small town “blanketed in dusk: a jumble of buildings huddled together, the ocean stretching out in front of it all” (61). He thinks that “he would like anything and anybody that was not at the bottom of the sea” (62).

Lawrence brings Edward home and presents him to Nellie. She is Lawrence’s wife and an old woman. Nellie “held the rabbit out in front of her and looked him over from tip to toe. She smiled” (65). Nellie thinks that Edward is a girl and names him “Susanna.”

The chapter introduces Edward’s new life with the fisherman and his wife: “And so Edward Tulane became Susanna” (69). Nellie makes Edward many handmade outfits. The outfits are “so simple, so plain. They lacked the elegance and artistry of his real clothes. But then Edward remembered lying on the ocean floor, the muck in his face, the