Previous Next

Crossing the Water

Summary: Crossing the Water

Part 1 is very brief and told from the perspective of King Howard Kashpaw Junior, a precocious and observant child. He describes the wallpaper in his bathroom which depicts women walking single file with jars on their heads. He stares at them while his parents, King and Lynette, yell in the next room. He has chosen to be called Howard at school, not King. He worries that the police will come and arrest his father again.

Lipsha Morrissey narrates Part 2. As he listens to King argue with his wife, he knows that he and King are half-brothers, both sons of June. After the bandages came off her eyes, Lulu could see truths even if they were long buried or denied. In the Senior Citizens home, she invites Lipsha into her room and tells him that her son, Gerry, and June Kashpaw are his parents, making Lulu his grandmother. Gerry will be released from prison soon. At first, Lipsha does not believe her, but then he realizes that she tells the truth.

When Lipsha returns to Lulu for more information, he learns that his mother, June, did not wish him dead and that Grandma Kashpaw (Marie) had the same fondness for him that she did for June. Confused, he sneaks into Marie’s room one night and steals the hidden money she’s shown him, feeling guilty but resentful. He makes his way to the border and drinks with a veteran who throws away the bottle, hitting Lipsha in the face. Lipsha is also hit in the face with the realization that his father, Gerry, will break out of prison and that he wants to meet him. Lipsha joins the army and then leaves town.

Lipsha finds King, his half-brother, who did time in prison with Gerry, his father. He recalls how King teased him when they were children, stealing his food and saying he wasn’t one of the “real children.” Lipsha talks to King Junior who is watching Road Runner on TV. King Junior, who now goes by “Howard,” pours milk and cereal into a bowl, and Lipsha gets some, too. Later, Lipsha and King talk about the past. King feels like he can never get ahead, always stuck with the minnows on the bottom. The two men play poker, using cereal as money. Lipsha has learned to cheat while working as an attendant at the Senior Citizens home. The TV announces that Gerry has escaped from prison, and Lipsha knows that he will show up there. He soon does.

In Part 3, Gerry tells them that King was a snitch, like an apple that’s red on the outside and white on the inside. King betrayed Gerry while they were in prison. When Lipsha tells Gerry his name, Gerry bursts into laughter. He wants to play cards with them, and realizes that Lipsha has crimped the deck, a trick they both learned from Lulu. When Gerry wants the game to have stakes, Lipsha suggests the car that King bought with June’s insurance money. King resists but they play. Lipsha wins and King hands over the keys, just as the police pound on the door. King Junior runs to the door and lets them in, thinking they are looking for his father, King. Meanwhile, Gerry disappears, and King Junior is terrified. Lipsha moves the boy to the couch and demands the car’s registration which Lynette finds and hands over.

In Part 4, Lipsha drives away, feeling free, and hears a knock in the trunk. He finds his father, Gerry, hiding there, nearly unable to breathe. They talk about Lulu and her strength and about June and her beauty as they drive toward the border for Gerry to escape. When Lipsha asks Gerry if he killed the state trooper, his answer is, “Nobody knows.” When Lipsha tells Gerry that he’s running from the army, Gerry assures him that they won’t take him because he inherited a heart that beats abnormally. The two men embrace as Gerry crosses the border. Lipsha drives home, stops on a bridge to watch the river, and thinks about his mother and father. 

Analysis: Crossing the Water

This final story is about identity. When Lipsha learns about his true parents, he is “on the verge of knowing who he is,” but his identify is not fully realized until he meets Gerry Nanapush in King’s apartment. Just as all the parts of Lipsha’s identity collide and comingle, readers learn the missing pieces of the plot and find their own identities as readers of the novel. Standing on a bridge with water swirling beneath him, Lipsha has learned so much in a short time. He also accepts that his place in the world is working at the Senior Citizens home. He tells his father that he quit school to teach himself what he needed to know, and this education comes full circle as the novel ends.

Parts 2–4 dive deeply into Lipsha’s psychology, and he emerges as the real protagonist of the novel, the one who changes the most and the one whose haunted heart finds peace in the conclusion. The novel begins with June’s death and ends with her rebirth in her son, Lipsha. Lipsha realizes that he has had a much better life than King, his brother, and that, “The son that she acknowledged suffered more than Lipsha Morrissey did.” Lipsha is the winner here. He wins the car, and he wins self-knowledge and self-worth. King is the loser of both the car and integrity. Even his own son doesn’t want to be called “King.” Lipsha puts his mother, June, to rest, not King, and honors both his mother and his grandmother by keeping the handkerchief safe. Lipsha heads home to the reservation, the final homecoming of the novel, as Love Medicine concludes. Lipsha has learned that despite being a criminal, his father, Gerry, is a good man. He has learned that his mother tried her best to do him right and did not want to end his life. He is more grateful than ever for the love and generosity of Marie. Lipsha has finally and fully become himself.

Previous section The Good Tears Next section Full Book Summary

Take a Study Break