67 pages • 2 hours read
It Ends with Us
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Chapter 32-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 32 Summary
Weeks later, Ryle shows up at Allysa’s apartment after Lily’s baby shower. Lily hasn’t spoken to him for three months. She allows him to help her take the gifts to her apartment and feels nervous, knowing that they need to talk about the baby and their future. Ryle offers to assemble the crib and while he does, Lily thinks of how much she misses him and how easy it would be to take him back. She reminds herself of what her mother told her: that if Ryle loved her, he wouldn’t let her take him back. Ryle, however, appears to want Lily to forgive him, even though he doesn’t broach or press the issue. It saddens Lily because “even though he’s responsible for the situation he’s in, [she] know[s] how sad he is about it” (342). He leaves without discussing anything.
Chapter 33 Summary
Two weeks later, Lily finishes the mural at her baby’s nursery and asks Allysa and her mother to see it, but they are both busy. She contacts Ryle, who comes over. They discuss his temper and his relationship with the baby. Lily admits that she is thinking about divorce but needs to make that decision when she’s no longer pregnant. Lily asks Ryle not to attempt to influence her while she’s pregnant. He agrees and leaves. Despite her anger towards him, Lily is trying to do right by her child. They are “[l]earning to navigate [their] situation before [their] child is brought into the fold” (349).
Chapter 34 Summary
Ryle has been sleeping on the couch at Lily’s, taking care of her as he awaits the birth of their child. Lily is happy that he is excited about being a father and spends time with him, though always in the company of Allysa and Marshall. While she is on a phone call with her shop, her water breaks and she calls Ryle. He arrives just as she emerges from the shower and sees her body as it has changed to accommodate their child, appearing grateful for Lily carrying their baby. Lily gives birth to a baby girl they name Emerson, after Ryle and Allysa’s older brother. Lily looks at Emerson and thinks of her father. She realizes that his abuse meant that she only remembers him at his worst, saying, “I was blinded to all the best things about him thanks to all the glimpses [she] got of him when he was at his worst” (357). This drives Lily to decide to divorce Ryle, who is stricken once he learns of it. Ryle begs her to give him one more chance, but with her newborn daughter in Ryle’s arms, Lily asks him to think of what he would tell her if she came to him having experienced the same abuse Lily had from a hypothetical boyfriend. Crying, Ryle tells her that he’d ask his daughter to leave this man. Lily reflects that in deciding to divorce, she and Ryle are breaking the cycle of abuse, “breaking the pattern before it breaks [them]” (360). She looks down at her daughter knowing she has made the right choice and that her daughter won’t see Ryle at his worst. Cycles are agonizing to break, but she promises her daughter that this cycle of abuse “stops here” (361), with her and her daughter.
Epilogue Summary
It’s been eleven months since Lily has given birth to Emerson. Since then, she’s moved to an apartment closer to her shop, but sees Allysa and Marshall frequently. She’s on her way to drop off Emerson with Ryle when she runs into Atlas. He sees her daughter and asks about her. Lily tells him that she will be leaving her with Ryle that day, which makes Atlas aware that Lily is no longer with Ryle. He tells her he opened a new restaurant, but Lily can’t stay to chat since she has to meet Ryle. After she leaves her daughter with Ryle, she returns to where Atlas was and tells him that Emerson’s middle name is Dory, after the character from Finding Nemo. Atlas embraces her and tells her that he feels his life is now good enough for her. She replies that she’s ready for a relationship and he tells her she can stop swimming, that they have reached the shore.
Chapter 32-Epilogue Analysis
Now that Lily has her support system in place, she feels better positioned to interact with Ryle. His patience with her is rewarded by Lily letting him participate in her life as her baby’s father. She lets him carry her gifts down to her apartment and when he doesn’t press her for having a conversation she’s not prepared for, two weeks later she invites him to come see the mural she painted in the baby’s nursery. Several weeks later, Ryle comes over more often and has been sleeping on Lily’s couch and taking care of Lily, while she awaits labor.
While this echoes Lily’s earlier statement about plants rewarding care, Lily hasn’t given Ryle false hope. His care now is to yield a relationship with his baby and Lily as his baby’s mother. She only demurs on divorce because she does not want to make the decision while pregnant. For Lily, asking for space is akin to asking for respect. Her request that Ryle not try to influence her decision echoes the beginning of their relationship, where Lily asked Ryle not to seek her out if he wanted a fling, and, later on, not to have sex with her to prove his seriousness about her.
Lily’s decision to ask for a divorce functions as a reward, in that it’s fundamentally an act of love for her family. Ryle gives Lily space, which convinces Lily of her choice. Although this seems like a painful decision, and one antithetical to the care Ryle has shown her while she has been pregnant, it’s a decision that comes from Lily’s love towards him and her daughter. Lily thinks of Ryle and her own father, especially how she was “blinded to all the best things about him thanks to all the glimpses [she] got of him when he was at his worst” (357). She doesn’t want this for her daughter and Ryle, which provides her resolve. When Lily explains her decision by asking Ryle how he would counsel his daughter if she were in the same situation, he comes to the same conclusion Allysa and her mother did about leaving an abusive situation as a way of affirming self-worth.
Patience and care being rewarded is the theme that closes the novel. In the Epilogue, Lily and Atlas meet again. At this point in time, Lily has already divorced Ryle, who remains a part of their daughter’s life. She mentions to Atlas that her daughter’s middle name is Dory, the character from Finding Nemo who encouraged the protagonist to keep swimming. Atlas, the novel suggests, is no longer swimming or struggling against difficult circumstances. He is even more successful and has opened a second restaurant. He tells Lily he finally feels that his life is “good enough for her” (367). Lily agrees, and Atlas tells her that she can stop swimming, that they have “finally reached the shore” (367). Both he and Lily, he suggests, have survived their respective ordeals, and are now free to find happiness with one another.
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