look for her, but never finds her and succumbs to an unidentified illness. II. Lowry Lowry does not seem to live anywhere, but travels from town to town. He explains that his parents lost everything in the Depression, so he is afraid to possess anything. They eventually settle in a town called Tintern, and he gets her a small room and a job at a Five and Dime. She repeatedly professes her love for Lowry, but he insists on treating her like a sister, and she jealously observes him going off with other women. Clara has a friend named Caroline who marries a man named Davey. Davey works a farm owned by a wealthy man named Curt Revere. As Clara walks back from their wedding, a man offers her a ride, and he turns out to be Revere himself. One summer Lowry begins sleeping with her. He tells her to use birth control but she does not. She meets Revere again and he oddly compares her to a Swedish girl he once met near a farm. Lowry suddenly shows up at her room one night, saying he is in trouble and he must flee for Mexico. III. Revere Revere comes across her again and takes her to an abandoned farmhouse he owns, where they make love. Revere provides for her in the farmhouse, coming every few days when he isn't with his wife Marguerite. At age seventeen Clara gives birth to a boy. Revere assumes the boy is his, but Clara knows it is Lowry's. They name the boy Steven, but Clara calls him Swan. When Swan is an infant, Lowry comes to the farmhouse and asks Clara to take Swan and go with him to Canada. Clara refuses, saying she is waiting for Marguerite to die so that she can marry Revere and be prosperous. Lowry leaves, but Swan later realizes that this man is his father. Clara eventually marries Revere and they move into his house, when Swan is seven years old. IV. Swan He adopts Swan, whose name is changed to “Steven Revere,” and he meets Revere's three sons: Clark, Jonathan, and Robert. Clara vainly buys many expensive items and decorations for their home, knowing that Revere has no end of money. Robert and Jonathan pick on Swan, although Clark, the oldest, is mature and kind. On a hunting trip that Swan despises, Swan pushes Robert and