Chapter 25 Summary and Analysis
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens with Fern waking to an empty bed. Will is gone with no note, no text, no voicemail—nothing to explain his absence. She initially assumes he had an early meeting, but when she walks to Cabin 20 in the drizzle, the cabin is dark and the curtains are drawn. She tells herself he's gone for a jog or a walk, takes a hot shower, and makes coffee, but as two cups pass with no sign of him, dread seeps into her limbs like a cold fog.
She sends him a text asking where he went, but the three little dots of a reply never appear. At the lodge, Jamie finds her staring blankly at her computer and assumes she's sick. She claims a hangover, but the day is the end-of-summer dance, and she's distracted all day. She leaves Will four voicemails and several texts asking where he is and whether everything is okay, but hears nothing. A chill settles in her bones that she can't seem to shake.
That evening, she showers, blows out her hair, and puts on makeup. When she slips into the red dress—the one her mother wore—she looks in the mirror hoping Will will be there. The force of what she wants with him crashes into her so hard she has to sit down.
At the dance, the lodge has been transformed: pink linens, pink dahlias, pink balloons, twinkle lights in the rafters, candles flickering in glass jars. Jamie booked a band that plays Motown covers and a set list heavy on Dirty Dancing songs, and he teases her with a wink. Mrs. Rose comments on Fern's scowl, and the Roses take the floor immediately, dancing before dessert. Fern laughs with Jamie, feeling at home for a brief, wonderful moment, but her eyes keep flicking to the doorway. Will never walks through it.
She wishes her mother were there. Peter asks her to dance—a rare exception for both of them. On the dance floor, Peter tells her she's a lot like her mother, not just in looks (he recognized the red dress from a Canada Day around 1992), but in grit. He shares that Maggie once said Fern had his soft heart and her strong head. When Fern asks if things would have been easier if he'd been married, Peter's answer stops her cold: what he wanted wasn't marriage itself but Maggie as a person.
The truth hits Fern with crushing clarity. She rushes to the lobby and asks the desk clerk to look something up in the computer. Will checked out that morning. Whitney chases her down, and Fern fills her in. Whitney is furious, exclaiming that he vanished again, but Fern insists on being alone.
Back at the house, Fern calls Will repeatedly, reaching his voicemail for the nineteenth time. She keeps calling, her anger rising with every ring. She thinks of her mother's eighteen-word note from Eric when he abandoned her. She wants more.
Finally, Will picks up. He's at the hospital—Sofia is sick. Fern immediately switches into problem-solving mode, offering to drive down, pack food, help. But Will refuses. He says he doesn't want her help. He tells her they were a mistake, that it's his fault, that he should have known from the beginning. Fern declares her love. There's silence. She says she thinks he loves her too. He says he can't, then his voice hardens: it's time they both stopped living in a fantasy and moved on. He hangs up.
Fern is devastated, then furious. She grabs matches and heads to Cabin 20 in the red dress and no shoes, intending to burn Will's clothes. But when she opens the closet and gathers an armload of his tailored suits, she slips on something on the floor. Sheets of paper and a large sketchbook lie on the coffee table. She picks up a drawing of herself floating in water, arms outstretched, eyes closed, with a smudge over her nose where it was erased. There are three unfinished variations of the same image.
She flips through the sketchbook: scraggly trees, a canoe on a beach, the Roses playing cards. And more drawings of her—one with short hair, leaning against a graffiti-covered wall. Then she turns a page and freezes. The drawing shows her on a dock with a bag beside her and a hat on her head. She says no out loud, trying to make it untrue, but she knows what she's seeing. She sags onto the pile of clothing, the book in her hand, and lets the tears fall. She stays there until a breeze carries the distant sound of the band playing a familiar song.
Key Events
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Will disappears without any explanation, leaving Fern anxious and worried all day
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Fern attends the end-of-summer dance alone, hoping Will will arrive
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Peter dances with Fern and reveals he wanted Maggie, not marriage
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Fern discovers Will checked out of the lodge that morning
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Will calls from the hospital—Sofia is sick—and ends the relationship
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Fern declares her love; Will hangs up on her
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Fern goes to Cabin 20 to burn Will's clothes but finds his sketchbook instead
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She discovers a drawing of herself on a dock with a hat and bag, which she recognizes
Character Development
Fern moves through the full arc of abandonment in this chapter: from denial and worry to hope, then to love declared and rejected, and finally to rage that collapses into grief. Her decision to burn Will's clothes shows how far her anger takes her, but the sketchbook redirects that fury into something far more painful: evidence of how much Will cared.
Will is present only through absence and a phone call. His voice is described as sterile and vacant, a stranger compared to the man who held Fern the night before. His abrupt ending—calling their relationship a mistake—contrasts sharply with the drawings he left behind.
Peter offers the chapter's quiet wisdom. His statement that he wanted Maggie, not marriage, reframes what love and commitment mean, and it's this insight that sends Fern to the computer to confirm what she already suspects.
Whitney provides fierce loyalty, ready to trash-talk Will all night, but respects Fern's need to be alone.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Abandonment is the chapter's central theme. Will's silent departure echoes Eric's abandonment of Maggie, and Fern explicitly connects the two when she thinks of her mother's eighteen-word note. The pattern of men leaving without explanation haunts the Brookbanks women.
The red dress connects Fern to her mother. Peter recognizes it from a Canada Day around 1992, and wearing it makes Fern feel her mother's presence—and her absence—more acutely.
Will's sketchbook functions as a confession. His drawings of Fern—including the one of her floating in water with a smudged nose, erased and redrawn—reveal a depth of feeling that contradicts his words on the phone.
The dock drawing is the chapter's revelation. The hat and bag in the drawing match the scene from the one-year promise, suggesting Will has been carrying that moment with him, drawing it repeatedly.
Seasonal transition mirrors the emotional arc. The late summer heat gives way to the cool damp of early fall, and Fern notices the first blush of red maple leaves—summer is over, and so is the relationship.
Why This Chapter Matters
This is the emotional climax of the novel's present-day timeline. Will's phone call ends the relationship just as Fern finally declares her love, and the sketchbook revelation complicates everything: his art says he loves her, even as his words say they were a mistake. The chapter also pays off the one-year promise motif, as the dock drawing connects Will's past and present feelings. Peter's wisdom about loving a person rather than an institution reframes what Fern has been chasing, and her mother's absence is felt most keenly at the moment Fern needs her most.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Peter's statement—that he wanted Maggie, not marriage—send Fern rushing to the lodge computer?
Peter's words reframe what commitment means. He loved Maggie as a person, not as a role or a milestone. Fern realizes that Will's presence at the lodge, his drawings, and their time together might mean something real—or that his absence means the opposite. The clarity Peter offers pushes her to confirm what she already fears: Will checked out that morning, without a word.
2. What does the dock drawing reveal about Will's feelings, and why does it devastate Fern?
The drawing shows Fern on a dock with a hat and bag, matching the scene from the one-year promise. It proves Will has been thinking about her, drawing her, carrying that moment with him—possibly for years. His art contradicts his phone call, where he called their relationship a mistake. The drawing reveals that his feelings were real and deep, which makes his rejection more confusing and more painful.
3. How does the seasonal transition from summer to fall reinforce the chapter's emotional arc?
The chapter opens with the late summer heat turning into the cool damp of early fall, and Fern notices the first red maple leaves as she leaves the lodge. The end-of-summer dance marks a literal seasonal boundary. As summer ends, so does the relationship—Will leaves with the season, and Fern is left in the cold, both literally and emotionally.