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Summary: Chapter 21
Around a month has passed since Lara finishes telling her daughters the Duke story, and it has been about six weeks since Duke died. As they tidy their kitchen together, Joe asks Lara if she was in love with Duke, and if she had ever been in love with Sebastian. She tells him yes to the former and no to the latter. She also adds that because she loves Joe so much now, it feels as if she’s only ever loved him.
The farm is busy and beautiful in the late summer. It’s a time of overlap between picking sweet cherries and shaking down tart ones. One day, Sebastian—now in his sixties—arrives at the Nelsons’ house unannounced. He has come to fulfill what he sees as a solemn promise: laying Duke’s bones to rest in the Nelson graveyard. Sebastian begins reminiscing about Peter and his deep connection to the Nelson family’s property; it was the only place he ever felt peaceful. He explains to Lara and the family how much Duke had loved the farm ever since he first visited, and he had never stopped thinking about it. From that initial visit, Duke had grown increasingly attached to the place and made multiple attempts to buy it from Joe’s aunt and uncle. Each time, his offers grew more and more generous, as he was determined to own the farm. When Maisie and Ken wouldn’t sell, he offered them a huge sum to buy a corner of the cemetery to be buried in. They relented, and the money saved the farm from ruin. Although they told him many times that he could visit them, stay in their guest room, or even just sit and enjoy the property, Duke never came to see them after he made the purchase. The money from this one transaction also likely funded Ken and Maisie’s move to Arizona. It solves a mystery for Joe, who had always wondered how his aunt and uncle got the money together to leave Michigan and move cross-country.
As Sebastian recounts these details, Lara reflects upon how much the farm meant to Duke. Even though he couldn’t own it during his lifetime, he finds a way to stay there forever after he dies. Lara’s voice becomes somber as the family prepares for the final act of laying Duke to rest. Sebastian, Lara, Joe, Benny and the daughters come together to dig a hole and to think of Duke. There’s a quiet, reflective moment as they inter him, during which Lara returns to the memory of her wedding to Joe in the farmhouse. She hopes that her children and their children will come together on this land and be buried there too. Furthermore, as she watches Sebastian, she thinks that he too would be welcome to be buried here someday if he ever chose to do so. The novel ends.
Analysis: Chapter 21
The past and present finally come together in the final chapter of the story, which is the only section of the book that Lara tells primarily in the present tense. Peter Duke's presence doesn’t diminish after he dies; in a way, he’s more present than he ever has been once his ashes are buried on the Nelson farm. Although he has lived in the minds of Lara and her family for their whole lives to varying degrees, he only permanently returns to the farm in death. Because his final resting place is the Nelson family graveyard, it seems he’s found a way to ‘own’ Three Sisters Orchards after all. He defies the seemingly incontrovertible rule of needing to be born into or marry into the family in order to have a permanent connection there. Ironically, in a life full of transient affairs and commitments, it’s the only lasting connection Duke ever makes. .
Sebastian’s return to oversee his brother’s burial also ties up several unresolved elements of Lara’s past. His presence at this moment is about far more than Duke’s final resting place. It brings Lara face-to-face with a past that she moved on from, yet never completely escaped. Previously, her encounters with Sebastian have been through memory, and she has been able to choose which parts of her life to share with her daughters. When Sebastian appears in person, she has no control over his actions or what the people around her will find out. Sebastian’s reappearance underscores the idea that things in Lara’s life move in cycles; although he had initially entered Lara’s life through Peter Duke, by the novel’s conclusion, Sebastian is the only Duke brother with whom Lara has an active, two-sided relationship.
Peter’s final resting place speaks to the theme of taking responsibility for one’s choices. In many ways, Peter embodies the life that Lara chose to leave behind. Had she chosen to be an actor and Duke’s romantic partner, Lara’s life would have been filled with fame and excitement. However, that existence would also have been rife with heartbreak and loneliness. Lara chose a secure life with Joe, but she still mourns and regrets what she lost when she chose to leave Duke. By walking away from that path, Lara embraced a different kind of life—one built around reciprocal and real affection instead of painful passion. The burial of Duke’s ashes on the farm is her final acknowledgement of her responsibility for that choice. Lara can now feel that Duke is still an important part of her world, without mourning the loss of a possible life with him.
As the novel draws to a close, Lara’s thoughts about Sebastian’s possible burial on the farm also point to her acceptance of the path she chose to follow. This idea—of welcoming Sebastian, someone who belongs to Duke’s world, to share in the life she did choose—represents a reconciliation of the two different parts of her life. While Peter Duke was loud and attention-grabbing during his life, his final resting place is a quiet one. It’s a space he could only access after the tragedy of his life had played out. This sad, ironic circumstance points to the novel’s thematic tension between the lives people actually live, and the ones they might have lived had they made different choices.
