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PART FIVE: Truth
Summary: Chapter 80
Cadence finally understands: Gat, Mirren, and Johnny all died in the fire. As far as the surviving family knows, the fire was an accident started by a jug of overturned motorboat fuel. The Liars and the dogs were trapped in the house, and Cadence was burned trying to save them. Her migraines and amnesia are symptoms of suppressed grief and guilt. The doctors treating Cadence suggest that she not be continually reminded of the tragedy, and that she should be allowed to remember what happened in her own way. She should also not return to the island until she has time to heal.
Summary: Chapter 81
The truth, Cadence now remembers, is that she and the others, drunk, were careless in how they set the fire. The ground floor was fully aflame before the others could make their way out of the basement and upper floors. Cadence barely got out herself. When she realized the others were still in the house and tried to go back to save them, it was too late.
Summary: Chapter 82
Cadence is filled with guilt over what she did, and with grief on behalf of Granddad, the three aunts, and the surviving younger cousins. She thinks about all the good qualities Johnny, Mirren and Gat each possessed, their dreams and ambitions, and their futures, which death has robbed from them. She realizes that they have remained on the island as ghosts only because she still needed them.
Summary: Chapter 83
Cadence realizes that Penny suspects the truth of how the fire started and loves Cadence all the same.
Summary: Chapter 84
At Cuddledown, Cadence has one last reunion with the Liars. They (especially Mirren) have been finding it harder and harder to stay on the island. The goodbyes at the beach are a mix of regret and tenderness. After a last hug from Gat, Cadence watches the Liars swim out to sea.
Summary: Chapter 85
Cadence joins the family for lunch and begins to settle back into the rhythms of family life. She accepts an invitation from the twins to go boating the next day.
Summary: Chapter 86
Granddad admits, during another town trip, that he doesn’t like Ed, but he acknowledges that Ed has stuck by Carrie. Cadence goes to Cuddledown and begins cleaning up the mess that built up as she spent time with the Liars.
Summary: Chapter 87
Cadence tells one last tale, of a king and his three daughters, and the daughters’ children. The fiery deaths of some of the children drove the daughters to despair and the king to madness, but in the end the family survived. For outsiders, the tragedy is a source of glamour and mystery. For the surviving children, it is an ugly, confusing tangle of secrets.
Analysis
In the present moment of Chapter 82, Cadence finally realizes many of her mistakes, but understands them as logistical. Her first reaction is to blame herself for setting the fire, but doesn’t want to shoulder the burden of having destroyed everything she loved. Her reaction is very similar to her actions throughout the novel. She understands of the consequences of her actions on some level, but wants to escape having to deal with those consequences. And although she cries for the lost futures of the Liars, she ends up crying for herself, and for the fact that she will have to live without them.
Penny’s reaction, as well as that of the Liars, to Cadence’s grief is one of instant forgiveness, quintessentially Sinclair in its willingness to absolve without a demonstration of penance or even the request for forgiveness. Nothing will bring the Liars back, or undo the damage that Cadence has done, but apologies, penance, and atonement are all necessary, healthy parts of loss and grief and bad decisions. Her mother’s immediate absolution suggests that Cadence will not be forced to truly reckon with what she has done and the world she is made by any outside force. Her work will be her own. Any accountability will be imposed by her own sense of responsibility and reconciliation, not by anyone in her family, who will seemingly be happy to put the past behind them and move forward, just like Cadence has always been taught to do
Cadence’s final fairytale comes the closest she has yet to telling the truth. She acknowledges that the family has undergone a tragedy that is neither fictional nor glamorous. It’s real and ugly and horrific and it has terrible consequences. The fairytale also dwells on the family’s beauty and on the beauty of the story that can be told about a tragic event. Cadence’s final consideration demonstrates that she will need to stop telling stories that celebrate the life she has always known and begin to make a life separate from the story of the Sinclair family. In cleaning Cuddledown, she is starting a journey of owning up to her responsibilities, taking into account others’ needs and concerns in a way that she has never had to do before. It is a small first step in thinking of herself as not the tragic princess in an overwrought fairy tale, but as a person, tasked with living a life with purpose and integrity. In this way she will be able to exist as something, and someone, other than a Sinclair, and, by extension, a Liar.
