Opening
A single crisis yanks the Sorenson family’s secrets into the light: when David Sorenson collapses, the myth of his perfect marriage with Marilyn Sorenson collides with the messy reality their daughters live. Across five chapters, Violet Sorenson-Lowell, Liza Sorenson, Wendy Sorenson, and Grace Sorenson spiral through shame, rage, and loyalty, while Jonah Bendt is thrust into the role of both scapegoat and savior.
What Happens
Chapter 21: Santa Isn’t Real
At a prenatal appointment, Liza apologizes to Gillian Levin for accusing her of an affair with David. Gillian accepts on one condition: Liza never brings up her parents again. Gillian insists David was simply kind during a dark chapter, and Liza recognizes that Gillian may be one of the few people who understands the pressure of living in the glow—and shadow—of David and Marilyn’s marriage, a strain that feeds the theme The Ideal vs. Reality of Love and Marriage.
Violet, resentful but acquiescing to her son Wyatt, hosts Jonah for a pre-Christmas dinner. She drinks too much, feeling that Jonah’s presence exposes the emptiness behind her family’s abundance. Later, Jonah gently implies to Wyatt that Santa isn’t real; Violet overhears and erupts, accusing Jonah of ruining Christmas for “my kids” and throwing him out. She also reveals she knows he stole wine previously, invoking the corrosive pattern of Secrets and Their Consequences. Matt is shaken by the ferocity of her outburst.
Flashbacks to 1998 trace the family’s fractures and redefinitions. Wendy moves into her first apartment, leaving Marilyn to confront a “half-empty nest” and impulsively buy the neighborhood hardware store as a new project. In another flashback, Wendy meets Miles Eisenberg, her older economics instructor; their chemistry is immediate, and she decides to drop his class so they can pursue a relationship that begins that night.
Chapter 22: An Insurmountable Bar
Alone on Christmas in Portland, Grace lets Ben drag her to a bar. Intoxicated and raw, she admits she lied to her family about skiing in the Alps, that she was rejected from law school, and that she’s stuck in a dead-end job. When Ben confesses he has wanted to ask her out, she can’t receive it; her self-loathing drives him away.
Back in Oak Park, Liza and Wendy corner Marilyn on Christmas night to say the quiet part out loud: their parents’ marriage set an “insurmountable bar,” leaving them “emotionally stunted.” As Marilyn tries to rebut, David walks in and shares an effortless, tender exchange with her—proof of the sisters’ point and a sharp illustration of the Complexity of Family and Sisterhood.
Flashbacks to 2000 deepen the portrait of the daughters’ uneven access to their parents. Six-year-old Grace barrels into a late-night “girl time,” instantly ending a rare moment when her mother seems young and silly, and she labels herself the “buzzkill.” In another scene, a teenaged Liza gets an infected tattoo; after a brusque call with Wendy, she turns to David, who treats it and agrees to keep it from Marilyn. The secret becomes a rare, private bond between father and middle daughter.
Chapter 23: The Most Fun I’ve Ever Had
Fresh from an alienating holiday with Matt’s family, Violet answers a call from Marilyn, who chastises her for her cruelty to Jonah: “You’re his mother.” The fight leaves Violet gutted and alone. Meanwhile, Jonah cuts class to honor his promise to attend Wyatt’s “Star of the Week.” When Violet and Matt don’t show, Jonah improvises—he claims a traffic jam, then sings a CCR song with Wyatt so he won’t have to stand alone. To shield Violet’s secret, he tells the other mothers he’s a boy from a shelter the family volunteers with.
Violet wakes from an exhausted sleep to realize she missed the event. Matt calls, furious, and reveals Jonah saved the day. That afternoon, David and Jonah work together to fell the dying ginkgo. Mid-task, David blanches, clutches his chest, and tells Jonah to call Marilyn. His last words before tumbling from the ladder: “Tell her she’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”
A long flashback (2000–2001) traces Violet’s secret pregnancy. She calls Wendy in a panic, moves into Wendy and Miles’s townhouse, and the sisters craft an elaborate lie about a year abroad in Paris. Hidden from view, Violet feels, paradoxically, “whole” and “blessed.” As her due date nears, she wonders if keeping the baby is the braver choice—but her water breaks before she can fully decide.
Chapter 24: Code
At the hospital, Marilyn learns David suffered a massive cardiac arrest, fell from the tree, and was technically dead for minutes before being placed in a medically induced coma. Terror swallows her; losing David has always been the fear she never let herself name. Jonah’s delivery of David’s final message offers both comfort and a knife’s twist.
Jonah, panicked and self-blaming, bolts. Loomis, the family dog, spooked him at the ladder—he convinces himself he could have steadied David otherwise. Before fleeing, he finds an envelope with his name on it in David’s desk. He takes David’s car, sets his phone to Do Not Disturb, and drives west, aiming at Oregon because Grace lives there.
A 2001 flashback to the delivery room shows Violet refusing to hold or even see her newborn. Wendy asks for the baby and, holding her nephew, feels—for the first time—an overwhelming, undeniable desire to have a child.
Chapter 25: Goblin Market
At the hospital, the sisters wait and fray. Violet is frantic about Jonah’s disappearance; Wendy is blithe and cutting, sure he’ll resurface, which sparks a vicious fight. Outside, Wendy runs into Aaron Bhargava, a married ex with a child and another on the way. The encounter rattles her, underscoring her own childlessness. She lies about why she’s at the hospital and hides that Jonah has texted her, promising to return the car.
In Portland, Grace hits bottom—unshowered, isolated, curled on the floor when the doorbell rings. A text bings: it’s Jonah, at her door after a nonstop drive from Chicago.
Two flashbacks to 2002 round out the fault lines. A younger Grace, forever the family “epilogue,” watches her sisters rewrite her memories and feels erased. And when Violet tells Matt about the baby she gave up, he’s gentle and accepting. She asks him never to speak of it again; he agrees, and they bury the secret at the foundation of their marriage.
Key Events
- Violet expels Jonah on Christmas Eve after he tells Wyatt the truth about Santa.
- Grace confesses to Ben that she lied about the Alps and law school; he storms out.
- Liza and Wendy tell Marilyn that her marriage to David set an “insurmountable bar.”
- Jonah rescues Wyatt’s “Star of the Week,” singing with him and protecting Violet’s secret.
- David suffers a heart attack while cutting down the ginkgo and falls; he is placed in a coma.
- Jonah, blaming himself, takes David’s car and drives to Oregon to find Grace.
Character Development
The crisis burns away each character’s defenses, exposing truer selves and sharper needs.
- Violet Sorenson-Lowell: Her hostility toward Jonah and failure to show up for Wyatt reveal a depleted parent on the brink; Marilyn’s reprimand detonates her isolation and self-loathing.
- Grace Sorenson: Rock bottom strips away the comic mask—she admits her lies and faces the magnitude of her loneliness; Jonah’s arrival jolts her back into connection.
- Wendy Sorenson: Her cutting humor hardens under stress; when she holds Violet’s newborn in the past, we see the origin of her desire for a child, which complicates her present cynicism.
- Jonah Bendt: Loyal and resourceful with Wyatt, he still responds to trauma like a teenager—by running. His invented “shelter boy” story shows his protective instincts and entanglement in the family’s secrecy.
- Marilyn Sorenson: The threat of losing David reveals a raw, unguarded woman whose identity is fused to her marriage; David’s last message both comforts and devastates her.
Themes & Symbols
Across these chapters, the family’s performance of love collides with its lived experience. The Ideal vs. Reality of Love and Marriage surfaces when Liza and Wendy call their parents’ marriage an unattainable model, even as Violet’s own marriage strains under silence and omission. The Complexity of Family and Sisterhood emerges in the sisters’ alternating tenderness and cruelty, their jockeying for proximity to their parents, and their long memory for grievances. Secrets and Their Consequences pull every thread tight: Violet’s hidden pregnancy, Grace’s lies, Liza’s tattoo, Jonah’s cover stories—each secret breeds more secrecy, isolating the keeper and corroding trust.
The dying ginkgo becomes an emblem of endings: the literal felling of an old growth mirrors the toppling of the family’s central figure. David’s fall marks the end of an era and the start of a reckoning the family can’t postpone.
Key Quotes
“You’re his mother.”
Marilyn’s reprimand to Violet reframes Jonah not as a problem but as Violet’s son—an identity Violet has tried to disown. The line exposes the moral center of the conflict: parenthood demands presence, not perfection.
“Tell her she’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”
David’s final message collapses decades of marriage into one tender truth. It sanctifies his bond with Marilyn while underscoring how that bond has, paradoxically, wounded their daughters.
“An insurmountable bar.”
Liza and Wendy’s phrase names the paradox of growing up under an exemplary marriage: the model becomes a muzzle. It captures how admiration curdles into resentment when imitation feels impossible.
“My kids.”
Violet’s possessive outburst at Jonah reveals the fault line beneath their relationship. The phrase reduces Jonah to an intruder and exposes Violet’s terror that her motherhood—claimed so fiercely—may be failing in practice.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters form the novel’s hinge. David’s cardiac arrest turns private tensions into a public emergency, forcing every character into choices they’ve delayed for years. Jonah’s flight, Grace’s collapse, Violet’s implosion, and the sisters’ hospital battles all spiral from that single moment, transforming slow-simmer family drama into a crisis of revelation. What falls with the ginkgo isn’t just a tree but the family’s illusion of stability—making room for truth, repair, or ruin.