58 pages • 1 hour read
One Day in December
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Chapters 42-51Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Section 14 Summary: “New Year’s Resolution-June 25, 2014”
Laurie marks her first New Year as a married woman with more complicated resolutions than in her past. She is desperate to make amends with Sarah, resolved to make sure Oscar never doubts her happiness with him, eager for a new professional challenge, and determined to spend more time with her parents and to make Lucille, Oscar’s mom, like her. Laurie escapes the heartbreak of losing Sarah by focusing on her honeymoon in the Maldives and her new life with Oscar, determined not to detract from his newlywed joy. Laurie feels almost relief, acknowledging, “The worst happened, Sarah knows, and in a strange way I feel purged and more able to love Oscar without ambiguity” (274). After returning from their honeymoon, Oscar asks Laurie for her opinion regarding a promotion at work. Oscar’s new job would require working in Brussels three days a week, and even though it surprises Laurie to think that she would not be with her husband for the majority of his work week, she gives him her support.
By May, Laurie has accepted her new part-time week with her husband and tries to fill her time by finding a new magazine job. One day, while Oscar is in Brussels, Lucille pays Laurie an uncharacteristic visit. She criticizes Laurie’s tea, and Laurie suspects that Lucille has an ulterior motive for passing through when her son is not present. The two women engage in small talk. Lucille says she has heard from Cressida, Oscar’s ex-girlfriend, that he is doing very well in his new position. Shocked that Oscar’s ex is working in a foreign country with him, Laurie realizes, “Lucille came here for one reason and one reason only: to make sure I’m aware that Oscar is spending half the week with his far more suitable ex-girlfriend” (281). This realization highlights Laurie’s loneliness. Without Sarah, Jack, and Oscar, Laurie is on her own with a critical and mean-spirited Lucille.
Meanwhile, Jack is finding joy in Edinburgh. He is happy with his job, glad to be broken up with Verity, and hopeful about his future. Jack reflects, “When I first arrived I found the looming granite buildings austere, but perhaps it was more a reflection of my state of mind than the gothic architecture” (282). Jack is happy to be on his own, independent, and free.
In June, a glimmer of hope sparkles in Laurie’s life. She gets an interview for a glossy women’s magazine and runs into Sarah. Sarah is reserved but nice and even texts Laurie after their brief encounter to wish her luck with the interview process. Elated, Laurie has hope that she will get back together with Sarah.
Section 15 Summary: “October 12, 2014-October 27, 2014”
Laurie is in the suburbs visiting her family for her nephew Thomas’s birthday. Oscar leaves early to prepare for a longer trip to Brussels, relieving Laurie. Although things are good between Oscar and Laurie’s family, she notes, “still I always feel slightly awkward when we’re all together, as if without me there’d just be three strangers in a room” (287). She feels the need to fill in the conversational holes, but now that Oscar has left early, she can relax. She avoids conversations about having her own children, unsure if she is prepared for that next step. It seems like a normal family day, but when Laurie brings a mug of tea to her father, she discovers him on the floor, dead.
The family is steeped in grief, but Laurie’s mother is in the worst way. The marriage between Laurie’s parents has always been an inspiration for her, and without her Dad she is sure that her mother will not be able to function. Laurie calls Jack, who is in bed with his new girlfriend, Amanda. He tries to ignore Laurie’s phone call, then considers “whether it’s crass to call Laurie back while my girlfriend sleeps beside me. On balance, I think it probably is, so I click it off” (291). However, Jack is nervous that something must be wrong. When he picks up and she tells him that her father has died, he leaves his bedroom to comfort her. Jack knows what it’s like to lose a father, and he tells Laurie to not rush to do anything, to wait for Oscar to arrive from Brussels, and to feel all her feelings in the way she feels them. He is glad to be of help and notices, “She sounds relieved, as if she just needs someone to walk through this with her. How I wish it could be me” (293).
Later in October, the family holds a wake for Laurie’s father. Sarah is slowly getting back together with Laurie, and when Laurie needs her the most, Sarah arrives. They have not yet spoken about Jack, but “it sits between us, unresolved, as if we shrouded it in a drop cloth and repainted around it, and I know that one day we’re going to have to take the sheet off and see what’s left underneath” (297). For now, Laurie is grateful to have Sarah back in her life, even tentatively.
Jack runs into Oscar at the wake, and when Oscar asks him if he has feelings for Laurie, Jack says yes. Afterwards, Sarah joins Jack and asks him if, had he met Laurie first, she would have been his “one hundred percent.” Jack is surprised that so many people are asking him about Laurie, but his toast at the wedding was evidence for many of his feelings for her. Jack avoids answering the question and is happy to see that Sarah has found her one hundred percent with Luke, with whom she is considering moving to Australia.
Section 16 Summary: “New Year’s Resolution-May 6, 2015”
The New Year comes and goes, with grief for her dead father keeping Laurie from making her characteristic resolutions. The months go by, and just when she has repaired her relationship with Sarah, she has to say goodbye. Sarah and Luke are moving to Australia, where Sarah has already booked a television reporting job. They’re throwing a goodbye party, and Laurie is disappointed that Oscar will not be attending. Laurie fears that her marriage to Oscar has become a part-time one; they don’t travel in the same spirit as their meeting in Thailand, and Oscar is consumed by his devotion to work. With Oscar away, Laurie is forced to socialize with Jack’s new girlfriend, a beautiful actress named Amanda. Laurie is confronted with the reality of Jack’s new life, “like I never imagined his life in Scotland becoming his life forever” (314). The trifecta has officially split apart.
Laurie and Jack dance together, even though Laurie still doesn’t trust her feelings for him. As they dance, their physicality and their conversation grow more and more intimate. They revisit their past, and Laurie tries to keep her true feelings at bay, thinking that Jack takes up “too much of my heart and it’s not fair on my husband” (318). They push the boundaries of their conversation, but they never quite reveal the entire truth. Laurie begins to cry, then Amanda interrupts them. Laurie decides to believe that she and Jack are better off without each other; now that her friends are heading to different countries, it’s time to close her heart on that chapter of her life.
Chapters 42-51 Analysis
These chapters portray a more permanent change for Jack, Sarah, and Laurie. In the early 2000s, Jack, Sarah, and Laurie lived directly in each other’s lives; as the years went on, they moved more to the margins of one other’s lives. Now that Sarah is moving to Australia, Jack lives in Scotland, and Laurie is staying put in England, they are more formally separated than ever before. Sarah and Laurie begin to repair their relationship in the months before Sarah leaves, but because Sarah is to move before they close the door on the hurt over Jack, there is an undertone of unresolved tension that is now in danger of never being fixed. Laurie has committed herself to making the best of her life, and Jack has repaired the physical and emotional stress that imploded his previous year. All three are growing up and growing apart.
It is significant that everyone in Laurie’s life is putting geographic distance between them. With Sarah in Australia, Jack in Scotland, and Oscar mostly in Brussels, Laurie is left on her own, but with strings. The geographic distance can symbolize emotional distance, which has its benefits and its consequences. On the one hand, the former triangle was detrimental to the overall happiness of each member. On the other hand, Laurie is alone with all of the “what ifs” of her past. Her present is made more difficult by family, a theme that is present in these chapters. Her family is disrupted when her father dies, and she can’t rely on Oscar, whose mother goes out of her way to make Laurie feel inferior. Laurie is suspicious of Oscar’s life abroad, weary of the compromises they’re already making for their “part-time” marriage. Her marriage is implicitly compared to that of her parents, who were in love with one another and present for each other until her father’s last moments.
All of the characters in Silver’s novel are trying to make sense out of their relationships, navigating when it’s time to settle and when it’s time to let go. Sarah and Jack break up not because they’re wrong for each other but because they’re not one another’s “one hundred percent.” When Sarah is with Luke, she finally feels that one hundred percent. Meanwhile Laurie is making many compromises for her life with Oscar. This notion of the “one hundred percent” complicates Silver’s narrative message about love, raising the questions of whether it is possible to truly love someone without feeling that they’re a one hundred percent match and whether “one hundred percent” is too idealistic. Jack and Laurie both seem to be settling, but settling also gives them more security.
Oscar and Laurie’s relationship is tested by Oscar’s mother and his absence, particularly in the context of Sarah’s goodbye party. Sarah has always been a major priority in Laurie’s life, one that Oscar doesn’t seem to ever truly grasp. His priority is his work, which is itself not a bad thing. However, his absence leaves Laurie with conflicted feelings about her own values and desires. If Oscar can’t be there for her in her most important moments (her father’s death, her goodbye to Sarah), then what is their marriage for, she wonders. This question is emphasized by Jack’s consistent presence in Laurie’s times of need. Even if Jack is not physically there with Sarah for her father’s death, he is more emotionally available than Oscar. Laurie calls him first and relies on Jack for advice and support.
Jack and Laurie both notice this discrepancy in Laurie’s relationship, but both seem to accept it. Oscar has always suspected Jack’s true feelings for Laurie, and Jack’s brazen admission to him is a sign of Jack’s new self-confidence, as well as his genuine dislike for Oscar. Everyone is getting wiser, older, and more mature, therefore also feeling less like fighting with and hiding their true feelings.
Jack and Laurie’s character developments are marked here by a new role reversal. Laurie once had to leave her job, family, and friends for a new country to discover herself, and now Jack is doing just that. Jack has become more honest and upfront with his feelings, while Laurie is the one who now keeps her thoughts controlled and at bay. Laurie’s career is finally developing, and in many ways, she’s gotten exactly what she’s wanted this entire novel: a loving husband, an exciting job in magazines, a friendship with Sarah and Jack. Laurie doesn’t express unhappiness or dissatisfaction, but the way she tries hard to make sure she doesn’t unsettle Jack or Sarah with her true thoughts signals to the reader that Laurie is hiding something from herself. Laurie is resigned to making her life work, and Jack is excited to see how he can make his life work, while Sarah is blissful in her new life.
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