43 pages • 1 hour read
Mary LawsonCrow Lake
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 6
Chapter 23 Summary
Daniel and Kate continue driving. They’re staying with Matt, Marie, and Simon, who live on the old Pye farm. Matt and Marie meet them in the driveway. Kate introduces Daniel, thinking, “After all these weeks of dreading it, visualizing it, living it in advance a thousand times, it was said. And my voice was fine” (261). Simon joins them. Marie seems the same but less fearful than she once was. Kate points out a group of bats to Daniel, noticing that Marie doesn’t seem interested. Kate and Marie have a polite, distant relationship. Luke and Bo arrive. Bo has grown “tall and blond and beautiful as a warrior” (265), and Luke is still very handsome. Bo shares local gossip.
Inside, Kate wonders how Marie can stand to live in the house where she grew up. She remembers the night Marie came crying to their door. Marie was certain Calvin would kill her for being pregnant. Luke pressed her to explain her comments, and Marie confessed that Calvin had murdered Laurie. After Laurie ran away, he returned for his coat, but Calvin caught him, took him to the barn, and beat him to death. After hearing the story, Luke sent Matt and Marie to the other room and then called Dr. Christopherson and the police.
The police arrived at the Pye farm that night. Calvin opened the door, greeted them, and said he needed to inform his wife they were there. Then he closed the door and shot himself in front of Mrs. Pye. Two weeks later, the police found Laurie’s body in a weighted sack in one of the ponds. Mrs. Pye was taken to a mental institution where she died a year later, and Rosie was sent to live with family.
Matt and Marie got married that fall. Matt burned down the barn and rebuilt it with Luke’s help. Marie gave birth to Simon, although complications with the delivery made it impossible for her to have another child.
Chapter 24 Summary
In the morning, Kate meets Daniel, Simon, and Matt outside, and they talk about Simon’s new tractor. Matt asks Kate about her research, but she struggles to talk about it due to guilt. After breakfast, Marie and Kate stay in the kitchen. Marie, a little frazzled, asks Kate what she thinks of Simon. Kate says that he’ll do well at university. Marie asks how Matt seems, and Kate says happy. Marie clarifies that she wants Kate to see, for once, that Matt is happy, and that he has a wonderful son and a good life. She tells Kate that Matt is always excited about her visiting, but then he stops sleeping, knowing Kate has never forgiven him.
Kate tries to say she doesn’t think Matt’s life is a failure, but Marie is unconvinced. Rattled, Kate tells Daniel what Marie said. She says that Matt’s life is a tragedy, and it’s a double tragedy that Marie doesn’t understand why. Cautiously, Daniel says that it seems like Matt is content, and that the real tragedy is how Kate has let her disappointment ruin their relationship. Kate processes this. She revisits a memory of Matt asking her to write to him frequently—she rarely did, thinking her letters would be too painful. She realizes she caused Matt pain by shutting him out.
The rest of the birthday guests arrive, including Mrs. Stanovich and Miss Carrington. Kate sees Matt and Daniel talking together. She slips into a new perspective, seeing them as two remarkable men, content and absorbed. She feels dazed, adjusting to this new way of seeing Matt.
That evening, Kate and Matt cover Daniel in bug spray and take him to the ponds. Matt has filled in the pond where Laurie’s body was found and planted silver birches in the soil. The other ponds are the same as ever.
Part 6 Analysis
The final section of the novel works largely to explore and start clearing up the emotional baggage that Kate has brought with her from childhood. It also finally finishes the story of the Morrisons and the Pyes, concluding with Laurie’s, Calvin’s, and Alice’s deaths.
When Marie hysterically tells Matt that she is pregnant and confesses that her father murdered Laurie, Matt is frozen with shock and emotion. Luke is the one to take control of the situation, calling for the police and the doctor despite Marie’s terror that if the police went to her father, he would kill the whole family. In some ways, this scene mirrors the scene in which Luke dislocated Matt’s shoulder: In that scene, Matt was the one to take control, and in this scene, that responsibility shifts the Luke.
Marie’s confession amounts to the dissolution of the Pye family. Calvin has violently broken the cycle on two counts: He has murdered his only son and killed himself. There is no abused son left to become an abusive father. This eradication is completed by Matt, who burns down the barn where Laurie was murdered and fills in the pond as a sign of respect.
Despite the intensity of this history, Marie and Kate maintain a politely distant relationship. Kate judgmentally notes that Marie is not interested in the bats and that she is not Matt’s equal when it comes to wonder and appreciation for the world. It is Marie’s intervention, however, that finally prompts Kate to reexamine the way she sees Matt. Marie makes it clear that Kate’s judgement hurts Matt, and that counter to her beliefs, he leads a good life. Matt loves his son, which is evident by their easy rapport. This conversation, combined with Daniel’s support for Marie’s standpoint, allows Kate to start seeing Matt’s life as a success in its own right.
The novel ends with a scene that Kate treasures: She and Matt take Daniel to see the ponds, symbolically weaving together the two great loves of Kate’s life. She has allowed herself to see these parts of her life as complementary and is moving toward a happier future.
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