Summary

The final chapter of Lively’s novel puts us back in Claudia’s room at the nursing home. Having just read Tom’s diary, she recognizes the person she has become would perhaps revolt Tom. Tom’s death and the passage of time have made these lovers as different as they could be. Tom remains young forever as Claudia ages. In death he is ignorant of history’s march, and the events that have shaped Claudia since the war will forever be unknown to him. Nonetheless, Claudia reflects, she and Tom are inextricably bound. Because Tom so insinuated himself into her being, both in life and in death, he lives on in Claudia and she speaks to him as if she is speaking to herself. Claudia says the events in Tom’s diary are clearer to her than a chronicle but that, even so, she cannot...