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part four: The Music of Hearts, 6♥, 7♥, 8♥, 9♥ 

Summary: 6♥ god bless the man with the beard, the missing teeth, and the poverty 

Ritchie begins looking for a job. Ed turns his analysis on Marv. The pattern of Marv’s obsessive frugality brings Ed’s focus to Marv’s large savings. He debates several tactics to find out Marv’s plan for the money before getting the idea from a panhandler to ask Marv to borrow money.

Summary: 7♥ the secret marv  

Ed revisits his favorite interventions. His successes with Milla, Sophie, Father O’Reilly, and the Tatupu family give him courage. Ed doesn’t want to fail his two close friends, Marv and Audrey. Ed asks Marv for money and when he shows hesitation, Ed feigns indignation and outrage. Marv breaks down in tears and confesses the reason he saves all his money. Almost three years prior, he got his girlfriend Suzanne Boyd pregnant, and her father out of shame moved the whole family to another town. Marv’s been saving his money for the child whom he has never met. Marv calls it guilt money. He got Suzanne’s address from their mutual friend Sarah Bishop, who warned him that her father will kill him, and he hasn’t gotten up the nerve to go. Ed and Marv agree to go together. 

Summary: 8♥ each to each  

Ed drives Marv to Auburn to see Suzanne and meet her child. It takes Marv fourteen attempts before he knocks on the door and goes in. Thirty seconds later Henry Boyd, Suzanne’s father, throws Marv out the door into the yard and proceeds to beat him. Ed engages with Henry. He tells Henry that his daughter is just as much to blame for the shame put on his family as Marv. He asks him to think of his granddaughter. Ed makes a case for Marv’s decency and respect in that he came to face him. He challenges Henry to think whether that took courage. Ed empathizes with Henry’s mixture of rage and sorrow. Suzanne comes out on the porch and she and Marv stare at each other. 

Summary: 9♥ the swings

Suzanne calls Vacant Taxis and books Ed for a pick-up for herself and her daughter, Melinda. As they drive from Auburn, Suzanne tells Ed she regrets everything and hates herself for refusing to stand up to her father. No one has ever stood up to him as Marv and Ed did. He drops them at a playground and goes to get Marv. Marv meets his daughter for the first time and formally shakes her hand. With Suzanne’s permission, he pushes Melinda on the swing. Afterward, Ed cherishes Marv’s smile and his tears. 

Analysis of 6♥, 7♥, 8♥, 9♥ 

An encounter with a homeless man who asks Ed for spare change gives Ed the solution for his intervention with Marv. Ed’s openness to caring about others makes him receptive to the hidden messages from his world, even from society’s outcasts such as the panhandler. The strategy of asking to borrow money casts Ed in a vulnerable light. By throwing himself on the mercy of his friend, he correctly anticipates that Marv would cushion his refusal by explaining why he’s protecting his savings. The money is a symbolic accumulation of good intentions formed by grief and loss of the woman he loved and the child he fathered. Ed’s strong support strengthens Marv to overcome his fear and act on those intentions. In the movie Cat Ballou, the actor Lee Marvin plays a drunken gunslinger whose love for the outlaw Cat Ballou motivates him to reform to save her. 

The scene of his ejecting Marv through the front door evokes a saloon brawl in Hollywood Westerns. Henry Boyd’s grief and loss prove as formidable as Marv’s. When Henry takes out his rage on Marv, Ed intervenes by appealing to Henry’s sense of fair play. Ed reminds Henry that his daughter Suzanne was just as much a factor in his shame as her boyfriend Marv. He points out it isn’t fair to blame only one person in the situation. Ed attempts to refocus Henry’s viewpoint from the disgrace he experienced at Suzanne having a baby out of wedlock to the love Henry feels for his beautiful granddaughter. In drawing Henry’s attention to Marv’s honorableness and respect in facing him, Ed makes a case why Henry should accept Marv.

Suzanne gains courage from Marv’s bravery. Facing her regrets about the way she appeased her father’s disapproval, she takes the next step to continue what Marv has started: the redemption of the past. Marv meets his daughter Melinda for the first time with a tender formal handshake that she echoes when she calls him by his full name, Marvin Harris. Father and daughter are kindred spirits. The caustic Marvin acquires a new dimension when he is free of the shame and fear he’s been carrying. Ed’s help empowers Marv to take control over the past to affect his future. Ed’s missions are beginning to have a ripple effect on his community. People are beginning to believe they can change their circumstances.

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