Summary
Susannah, Laurel, Belly, and Jeremiah finally have their long-postponed movie night in Chapter 40. Susannah falls asleep in the middle of her favorite Hitchcock movie, and Jeremiah carries her up the stairs; Laurel puts herself to bed. Left thus alone with Jeremiah, Belly confesses that she has lost interest in Cam, and that he hasn’t called her either. Suddenly, she feels the atmosphere shift, and Jeremiah begins confessing his romantic interest in her. Unwilling to shift their friendship and recognizing that she still has feelings for Conrad, Belly lets Jeremiah down. In turn, he asks, “why does it always have to be Conrad?” and leaves.
Chapter 41 jumps back to a scene in which 12-year-old Belly and Jeremiah are left at home to play together. Mr. Fisher had intended to take the boys on a fishing trip, but because he fell sick, Jeremiah stayed home while the other two went. In this moment, he relates to Belly that Adam favors Conrad, and that he “just wish[ed] [he] could be as good as him.” Jeremiah then tells Belly that he knows that she’s in love with Conrad.
In Chapter 42, Belly catches Conrad on his morning run, and resolves to confess her feelings right there. She runs downstairs and tells him of her love for him. He responds, "Well you shouldn't. I'm not the one. Sorry." Belly retorts that she doesn’t believe him: she argues that he’s playing games with her: “You just want to keep me on this hook, right? So I'll keep chasing after you and you can feel good about yourself. As soon as I start to get over you, you just reel me back in. You're so screwed up in the head.” The two get into an argument, with Conrad claiming that she’s the one playing games—involving Jeremiah and Cam—and Belly telling him how bad he’s made his mother feel all summer with his mood swings. At this moment, Jeremiah returns home from lifeguarding, and intercepts the argument. Quickly, however, he becomes the center of a larger argument, one that, Belly realizes, doesn’t really involve her at all. Susannah and Laurel come down to break up the fight, and Laurel gets Belly alone to tell her that Susannah’s cancer has returned—and the boys knew all along.
In the next chapter, Belly knocks on Jeremiah’s room and expresses sympathy for his mother being sick again. She gives him a hug and announces that she’ll be sleeping in his bed tonight, face-to-face, just like they used to do as kids. In the morning, on the way back to her own room, Conrad sees her. Hungover, he provokes an argument with Belly that ends with her saying, “You're the most selfish person I ever met…I can't believe I ever thought I loved you.” She regrets her harshness immediately, but doesn’t turn back to apologize.
Downstairs, she confronts Susannah for the first time after finding out about her cancer's recurrence. At first unsure how to act, Belly eventually settles into an easy rhythm with Susannah once again. The older woman asks Belly to take care of Conrad for her (ostensibly when she is gone) but quickly shifts the conversation to lighter topics like the high-school prom that Belly will be attending for the first time. After this conversation, Belly finds Conrad outside, sitting by the beach. She kisses him, and he begins to kiss back, but breaks away with a “'It can't happen like this.'" He stops, then starts again. "'I do think about you. You know that. I just can't . .. Can you .. . Can you just be here with me?'”
In Chapters 43 and 44, Belly and Laurel prepare to leave the summer house, including packing and cleaning up. Cam calls twice, but Belly ignores both calls; Jeremiah pretends like he never confessed his feelings. To end the summer officially, Belly convenes the Fisher boys at the pool, and they playfully make a “whirlpool” with all their bodies.
In Chapter 45, it’s winter and Belly is home when she receives a call from Conrad: he’s on his way to see her, having driven all night to do so. She notes how he looks—he’s wearing winter clothes, has a slight flush from the cold, and his tan has faded. “Everything that happened this past summer, and every summer before it, has all led up to this. To now.”
Analysis
These six chapters close the loops that opened at the beginning and have been explored over the course of the novel. This “closing” occurs on relationship, existential, and literary levels.
On the relationship level, Belly’s romance with Cam ends; the implied romantic interest that Jeremiah has for Belly is brought out into the open and dismissed; Belly’s longstanding feelings for Conrad are shared, and eventually reciprocated and sealed by a kiss. Despite the eventual reciprocation of Conrad’s feelings, however, the pair’s relationship is cyclical rather than linear: rather than progressing directly and straightforwardly into romance, the two argue and hurt each other various times before doing so.
On an existential level, Susannah’s sickness serves as a reminder of her looming death—which will forever change all the lives of these characters. This “point-of-no-return” is also emphasized by the fact that Conrad, Jeremiah, and Belly are all aware that even if Susannah survives into the next summer, commitments like college and football camp may prevent the three from convening in the same way they have in all the summers past.
On a literary level, Han uses various devices to signal the closing of her narrative. First, we have the symbol of the whirlpool, made by Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah’s bodies in the pool. As a final goodbye, the three jump into the pool and behave like “kids” one more time before Belly must leave. A whirlpool pulls things into its currents, and Belly embraces this pull, allowing herself to literally (in this moment) and symbolically (in the grander scheme of her life) “let the current carry [her].” Second, Han’s final chapter ends with winter—both symbolic of the year’s end as well as a closing of the loops of endless summers spent at the Fisher home. The moment that she sees Conrad in the winter for the first time is the moment in which he escapes her fantasies of summer and enters into her reality, her everyday.
Importantly, however, her relationship with Conrad has always demonstrated its circularity rather than linearity: the novel closes its loops, but leaves open the possibility that certain strands may come undone again. The image of the whirlpool also contributes to such foreshadowing. Whirlpools are caused frequently by conflicting currents: if Belly has surrendered herself to the whirlpool of life, different currents may yet carry her away.
