Chapter 3 Summary and Study Guide

⚠️ 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 in the immediate aftermath of the bathroom accident that ended the previous chapter. The narrator limps on a knee that feels like a crumbling rubber band, while Nick sports the beginning of a black eye. They have showered, and their mock inspection of each other's wounds serves as their version of making up. The cottage bathroom is clean, and the towels are washing in hot water with bleach.

At a Cape Cod surf shop, Willa uses the accident—which she calls Plungergate—as a flirtation device with a young woman who works there. The narrator whispers an apology, recognizing what Willa is doing, and Willa laughs and winks. Soon the employee is typing something into Willa's phone. The narrator reveals she wanted to drive to Ocean State Job Lot, a discount store, but was outvoted.

The chapter then offers a meditation on what a Cape Cod vacation actually involves versus the idealized postcard version: surf shops, a supermarket that smells like raw meat, clam shacks, port-a-potties, mini-golf, twenty-dollar sunscreen, and waiting for children to pick out saltwater taffy. The narrator reflects that most of family life happens in these unglamorous places, not on the epic beaches.

Jamie holds up black board shorts, and Maya, his girlfriend, declines to buy anything despite the narrator's encouragement. The narrator describes Maya's youthful beauty—her cascading hair, glowing skin, silver nose hoop—and contrasts it with her own aging body and the shapeless sack dresses of her own youth. Nick selects board shorts similar to Jamie's, and Willa picks a gray sports bra and the same shorts as her father and brother.

The narrator needs a swimsuit and doesn't know her size. Willa advises her to get something comfortable, warning she'll otherwise be picking it out of her ass crack and blaming Nick for forgetting the swimsuits. Trying on a navy tank suit, the narrator recalls buying a suit in this same shop twenty years earlier, when Jamie was three and she was very pregnant with Willa. Her old tankini's elastic had given out with a sad ripping sound. Willa notices her expression and asks what's wrong. The narrator thinks about how all those little girls are nested inside her like matryoshka dolls, but says only that she's sentimental.

In the fitting room, she tries two sizes. One is gappy at the chest; the other pinches and bisects her butt. She notices writing on the door: a note about unceded Wampanoag territory. She picks the roomier suit.

In the car, she complains about the two hundred dollars spent, and everyone grumbles. Willa tells her to check her privilege, and the narrator asks whether that means checking it at the door or taking a good hard look. Willa says to just pick one and do it.

Nick asks about plans—beach and clam shack. The narrator turns to Jamie and asks if he told Daddy about the nice thing his supervisor said. Willa objects to the word Daddy, and the narrator pushes back, noting they're not sex trafficking anyone. She admits she's not entirely sure what the word means now, recalling she once thought the Fleetwood Mac song Oh Daddy was about Christine McVie's father. She offers to say peepaw instead, and Jamie laughs, saying he'll tell Nick later.

At the beach, the sun is setting behind pink-and-blue clouds. The family holds up towels so Nick and Willa can change into their new suits, tearing off tags. They run screaming into the waves, and Willa wraps her arms around Nick's neck so he can bounce her like a baby. The narrator thinks Daddy, stubbornly, because he's been their daddy so long. She acknowledges that change is hard but necessary.

She remembers standing on this shore with four-year-old Jamie, who was afraid of the water. He repeated a mantra—Daddy is okay, Daddy is a good swimmer—while the narrator squatted so he could wrap his arm around her head. She reassured him, and the following summer Jamie bobbed in the waves with his dad.

Back in the present, Willa and Nick return through the wavelets. The narrator sings Sunrise, sunset from Fiddler on the Roof, and Willa joins in, adding a yelled line about being starving for clams. The narrator realizes she is too.

Key Events

The narrator and Nick recover from the bathroom accident, showering and mock-inspecting each other's wounds as a form of reconciliation.
Willa flirts with a surf shop employee, using Plungergate as her opening line.
The family buys swimwear: Jamie and Nick choose black board shorts, Willa picks a gray sports bra and shorts, and Maya buys nothing.
The narrator tries on swimsuits and recalls buying one in the same shop twenty years earlier while pregnant with Willa.
She notices a Sharpie message about unceded Wampanoag territory on the fitting room door and chooses the roomier suit.
In the car, the narrator complains about the cost, and Willa tells her to check her privilege.
Willa objects to the narrator calling Nick Daddy, sparking a conversation about how language changes.
At the beach, Nick and Willa run into the waves together, and the narrator remembers four-year-old Jamie's fear of the water.
The narrator and Willa sing Sunrise, sunset together as the sun sets.

Character Development

The narrator is the emotional center of this chapter. Her body is changing—she doesn't know her size, her knee hurts, and she compares herself unfavorably to Maya's youthful perfection. Yet she also shows resilience: she picks the roomier suit, accepts Willa's privilege check, and stubbornly holds onto the word Daddy even as she acknowledges she must change. Her memories of buying a suit while pregnant and of Jamie's childhood fear of the water reveal a woman deeply aware of time passing.

Willa emerges as socially conscious and confident. She flirts easily, tells her mother to check her privilege, and gently pushes back on outdated language. She also shows empathy, noticing her mother's expression in the fitting room and asking what's wrong. Her willingness to sing Sunrise, sunset with her mother suggests a softness beneath her modern exterior.

Nick is patient and steady. He doesn't argue about the word Daddy, shrugs at the language debate, and carries Willa in the waves like a baby. The narrator's memory of Jamie's mantra—Daddy is a good swimmer—reinforces his role as the family's anchor.

Jamie is now an adult with a girlfriend and a job. He laughs at his mother's suggestion to call Nick peepaw and handles the Daddy conversation with good humor.

Maya is polite and self-contained, declining to buy anything and thanking the narrator for the offer. She represents the next generation's ease with their bodies.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Aging and body image dominate the chapter. The narrator's inventory of her body—the crumbling knee, the bag of dinner rolls between her ribs and legs, the gappy swimsuit—contrasts sharply with Maya's cascading hair and glowing skin. The fitting room becomes a site of reckoning with mortality and change.

Nostalgia and memory run throughout. The surf shop triggers a twenty-year-old memory of buying a suit while pregnant, and the beach triggers the memory of four-year-old Jamie's fear of the water. These memories layer the present with the past, showing how the narrator experiences time as a series of nested selves, like matryoshka dolls.

The passage of time is symbolized by the song Sunrise, sunset, which explicitly mourns the swift flight of years. The narrator's observation that her beard would turn white while waiting for taffy is a comic version of the same theme.

Changing language and social awareness appear in the Daddy debate and the privilege check. The narrator's confusion about what Daddy means now—and her memory of misreading a Fleetwood Mac song—highlights how generational shifts in meaning can leave parents feeling out of step.

Vacation reality vs. idealization is a recurring motif. The narrator's catalog of unglamorous vacation activities—surf shops, clam shacks, port-a-potties, walk-in clinics—grounds the family's experience in the mundane, even as the beach scenes offer genuine beauty.

Acceptance of change is the chapter's quiet resolution. The narrator thinks, You have to change, even as she stubbornly holds onto Daddy. Her choice of the roomier suit and her willingness to sing with Willa suggest a tentative embrace of what is, rather than what was.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter deepens the novel's central concerns: the passage of time, the body's aging, and the shifting dynamics of a family as children grow up. The surf shop scene establishes the narrator's relationship with her own body and with her children's adulthood, while the beach scene provides a tender counterpoint in the memory of Jamie's childhood fear. The Daddy conversation and the privilege check show the narrator grappling with a world that has moved on from her assumptions. The chapter ends on a note of connection—mother and daughter singing together—that suggests the family bonds remain strong even as everything else changes.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator choose the roomier swimsuit, and what does this choice reveal about her character?

She chooses the roomier suit because the snugger one pinches her legs, bisects her butt, and feels uncomfortable. The choice reveals a pragmatic acceptance of her body as it is, rather than as she might wish it to be. Combined with her earlier memory of the tankini's elastic giving out, the decision signals a shift from trying to fit into an idealized version of herself to accommodating her actual, aging body.

2. What does the Daddy conversation reveal about generational differences in the family?

The conversation shows Willa policing language that has acquired new connotations, while the narrator resists, insisting the word is innocent in their family context. Her admission that she doesn't fully understand the new meaning—and her memory of misreading Oh Daddy—reveals her awareness of being out of step. The exchange is comic but also poignant, illustrating how even small words can become sites of generational tension.

3. How does the memory of four-year-old Jamie at the beach connect to the present scene with Willa?

The memory of Jamie's fear of the water and his mantra about Daddy being a good swimmer mirrors the present scene where Willa wraps her arms around Nick's neck in the waves. Both moments show Nick as the children's protector in the water, and both show the narrator watching from the shore. The parallel emphasizes the continuity of parental love across different children and different summers, even as the children themselves grow and change.