51 pages • 1 hour read
Tessa BaileyIt Happened One Summer
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 28-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary
Brendan worries that things with Piper are too good to be true. He doesn’t know yet of her decision to stay in Westport, and his fear that he is going to lose her puts him on edge. When Daniel calls, Brendan realizes that Piper has left herself an out, a safety net. Hurt and outraged, Brendan accuses Piper of stringing him along like one of her internet followers and plotting her exit. He tells Piper to figure out what she wants, and he leaves for the night. He is departing for a fishing trip in the morning, and she promises him she will be at the dock to say goodbye. She asks him to have faith in her and believe she loves him.
Chapter 29 Summary
Piper goes for her morning run and stops to help Abe climb the stairs to the museum porch, as is their habit. But when he falls and injures his head, Piper stays with him until his son can arrive to take Abe to the hospital. She texts Brendan to tell him she’s coming, but helping Abe makes her miss Brendan’s boat, and Piper is afraid he will believe she’s really going to leave him.
Daniel calls to say he can’t attend the party because of a casting problem. When the Labor Day party begins, only Mick shows up at the beginning of the party. Trying to help, he tells Piper that Westport is tough to crack and that maybe people aren’t interested in “flashy changes” (355). Piper takes that to mean that she doesn’t belong, and never could. Hannah sees that her sister’s “Piper sparkle” is gone (356). She urges Piper to return to Los Angeles, where Kirby has been planning an enormous party. Hoping she can forget her disappointment, and maybe get her old self back, Piper leaves.
Chapter 30 Summary
Brendan’s course home for the Della Ray is rerouted because of an oil rig fire, and he is late getting to Cross and Daughters for the Labor Day party. (The fire is, it turns out, the reason that people didn’t come to Piper’s party right away; they were waiting for news about how bad the disaster was.) He regrets that he walked out on Piper and realizes he had pushed her for a commitment, asking her to give up a great deal, when she’s only known him a few weeks. When he finds a picture of herself that she tucked into his rain slicker, with a note saying it is for his bunk and that she loves him, Brendan is desperate to find Piper and apologize. But although the bar is now packed with people, Piper is gone. Hannah gives Brendan the address for the party in LA. Brendan confronts Mick and tells him he will have to accept that Brendan wants to be with Piper. Then he drives to Los Angeles.
Chapter 31 Summary
At her party in LA, Piper is sorry she came. She’s sitting on a mechanical unicorn, about to be lifted onto a stage in front of a crowd of people, and Kirby wants her to wave a glitter wand. All Piper wants is to go home to Brendan. Piper realizes that the “fame she’d always reached for was finally reaching back, and she wasn’t interested” (374).
The unicorn arrives onstage, and when Piper sees Brendan in the crowd, she runs to him and throws herself into his arms. Brendan carries Piper across the street to his hotel. He vows that he loves her more than the ocean and will come to LA if she wants him to; he promises that “I’ll love you until my heart gives out” (378). He tells Piper that she doesn’t have to fit some mold for him; he just wants her to be Piper. She reassures him that she loves him in return and all she wants is to be with him.
Epilogue Summary
Piper tells Hannah goodbye and hugs her before Hannah leaves Westport to return to LA. Then Piper goes to the dock to welcome her boyfriend home from his fishing trip. She reflects that she has come to terms with her identity and is learning to like herself. And she is happy.
Chapter 28-Epilogue Analysis
The romance plot usually contains a rupture that drives the main characters apart before the happy ending. A breakup separates them and, in the separation, gives them time to realize what they mean to one another. Where Piper’s declaration of love to Brendan was the point of no return for her—the beginning of the recognition that she wants to stay in Westport—Brendan hasn’t yet realized that he can’t do without Piper. He is so worried about losing her that he makes it come to pass, using her invitation to Daniel as an excuse to convince himself that she was never serious about him. Brendan’s concern that he, his life as a fisherman, and Westport aren’t a match for what LA can offer comes to the surface, and his fear drives them apart.
Piper intends to demonstrate her commitment to Brendan by showing up at the dock to say goodbye as he leaves for his next fishing trip. Ironically, it is her first commitment to Westport—her promise to help Abe manage the stairs of the museum porch—that keeps her from arriving at the harbor in time to say goodbye. The gesture is important because this is what fishermen’s wives and girlfriends do; they see their man off with a brave smile and welcome him back with open arms. Piper intends to show Brendan that she can, in fact, be a fisherman’s girlfriend. But the Della Ray is gone by the time Piper arrives, and she fears he will think she chose LA over him. Just as Daniel has no faith in her, she fears Brendan will lose faith in her as well.
Daniel’s last-minute cancellation feels like another abandonment to Piper. She wanted to prove that she is no longer a disappointment and can accomplish something. When Mick arrives and appears uncomfortable, his statements about Westport bring up all of Piper’s fears that she doesn’t have the character to be part of this town. She thinks Mick is saying that she can never be like Desiree, nor can she ever mean what Desiree meant to Brendan. She isn’t excited about Kirby’s party, but she still likes to wear pretty dresses and shoes and be the center of attention. It would be easy to go back to that, Piper thinks. She’s tried the hard things, and the hard things hurt. She wants to escape.
When Brendan finds the picture of Piper in his rain slicker, he’s reminded of how happy they were together and how much he wants her in his life. He realizes that it was smart for her to leave safety nets and that he asked her to give up everything she knew while making very few sacrifices in kind. The burning oil rig that delays his return is simultaneously a symbol of how dangerous life can be on the water and another example of how his job might keep them apart. When Brendan arrives, the packed bar is a sign that Westport has accepted the Cross daughters and is ready to welcome them back.
Brendan’s appearance at the club in LA shows not only that he wants to reconcile with Piper but that he is ready to make changes to do so. Where once he was so set in his ways that he couldn’t vary his routines or his food choices, now he is ready to give her what she needs to be happy. However, Piper realizes that her life in LA had no substance; it was a mythical creation somewhat like the mechanical unicorn she is perched on. Brendan is real, and his coming for her cements her love and trust in him. She feels safe. Brendan is her home, and that means Westport is her home as well. The epilogue shows Piper saying goodbye to her old life in LA as she hugs Hannah before her sister leaves. Welcoming Brendan at the dock shows that Piper is ready to fit into this life and ready to be part of Westport. She has come to terms with who she is and has discovered where she belongs.
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