47 pages • 1-hour read
Finding Grace
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Chapters 19-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
Chapter 19 Summary
Honor had a long, hard labor with Chloe. However, her desire for a second child began as soon as she gave birth.
In the present, Grace gradually moves in with Tom and Henry. Tom realizes how happy he is “to belong to someone again” after Grace unpacks her clothes (233). That same day, they work together to change the wall hangings. Tom panics when Grace removes a picture from the wall, and he sees lines from the Baudelaire poem written on its back in Honor’s hand. He realizes things have gone too far and wishes he’d destroyed the donation center letter and Grace’s donor CD months ago.
On Grace’s birthday, Tom and Henry surprise her with breakfast in bed and a few gifts. Tom is worried when Grace doesn’t seem to like the Cartier watch he got her. Grace grows distant, insisting she never told Tom when her birthday was and demanding to know how he knew. He lies and says he saw it on her license.
That evening, Tom, Grace, and Henry go out for a birthday dinner. When another customer refers to Grace as Henry’s mother, Tom corrects her. An offended Grace leaves the restaurant. Outside, she and Tom get into an argument.
Henry gets upset and runs up the block. He trips, falls, and hits his head. Tom and Grace race him to the hospital, where Grace tries to help Tom fill out Henry’s forms. Tom lies about Henry’s biological mother, pretending he tossed Henry’s egg donor’s medical records. Grace is confused and upset. Then the doctors inform the couple that only one parent can accompany Henry into the exam. Grace leaves, reminding Tom she isn’t Henry’s mom.
Chapter 20 Summary
Sitting in bed with Henry the next day, Tom replays everything that happened between him and Grace. She stops over later to check on Henry. She understands Tom’s grief but insists he hasn’t been honest with her. Tom says he has something to show her and heads to the safe to retrieve the letter and CD. Henry races out and greets Grace. She enters Tom’s room just as he is emptying the safe. Instead of remarking on the CD, she exclaims at Honor’s engagement ring in his hand, convinced he is proposing. Tom plays along, proposes, and she accepts.
Chapter 21 Summary
Tom proposed to Honor when they were at Annie’s place in Scotland. They were on the beach in the rain when he gave her the ring. Just as their friends appeared to congratulate them, Tom realized he had lost the ring. Lauren then found it on the beach. A relieved Tom grabbed and kissed Lauren, insisting he loved her.
Over the next week, Tom and Grace settle back into their life together. On Sunday, they have lunch at Annie’s. Everyone is shocked by the news of Tom and Grace’s engagement, and they are even more incensed when they discover that Tom gave her Honor’s ring.
When Grace steps out of the room, the friends confront Tom about the matter. He admits it was an accident but passes it off as no big deal. When Annie accuses him of “living a lie” (266), Tom threatens not to be their friend anymore if they don’t keep his secret.
Chapter 22 Summary
Tom takes Grace and Henry on an impromptu trip to Talisker Bay Beach. They spend the time taking walks, making fires, and sharing food. One night, Tom joins Grace in the bath, convinced this is the only thing that matters.
A few days later, Tom and Grace consider eloping while away, but Lauren calls to announce she’s throwing them an engagement party. They discard their elopement plans.
Chapter 23 Summary
Tom is agitated on the day of the party. Nervous, he goes in search of the CD, but it isn’t in the safe. Throughout the party, he stays glued to Grace’s side, his mind consumed with worry over the CD.
Colette shows up and exclaims that Grace is wearing Honor’s ring. Grace demands to know what’s going on. Suddenly, Grace’s donor CD starts playing on the stereo. A shocked and furious Grace tells Tom that he is a horrible person who has deceived her. She leaves with Nellie.
Chapter 24 Summary
Colette stays with Henry that night while Tom goes over to talk to his friends. He demands to know who took and played the CD. Finally, Lauren admits it was her. She professes her love for Tom, imploring him to recognize their connection. The friends are furious and demand that Lauren leave. Afterward, Tom apologizes to Annie; she forgives him and promises to stay by his side.
Chapter 25 Summary
Colette continues to stay with Tom and Henry over the following weeks. They settle into a routine together. Finally, one day, they share a heartfelt conversation about love, death, and loss, and Colette opens up about her late husband Richard’s passing. She encourages Tom to clean out the basement and helps him start the project. When they open Honor’s computer, they’re surprised to discover she was writing a memoir. They each keep one of her and Chloe’s things and let the rest go.
A few weeks later, Henry draws a card for Grace and asks Tom when she’s coming back. Tom tries to explain the situation. He starts to tell him about Honor, Chloe, their deaths, and who Grace really was to them, too. Afterward, he realizes Grace deserves an explanation. He mails her the donation center letter without including a note.
Six months later, Tom, Colette, and Henry join Annie and Oliver for food. They discuss their lives and relationships. Annie and Oliver encourage Tom to track down Grace, suggesting he show up at her sommelier exam.
Tom goes to the sommelier exam, but Grace isn’t there. An attendant informs him that she dropped out of the course. Tom returns home to Colette and Henry. That night, he starts reading one of Honor’s books to Henry.
Chapter 26 Summary
Tom celebrates Christmas with Colette and Henry at home. Colette gives Tom a Christmas star etched with Chloe’s name for the tree. The doorbell rings—the Sunday Blues are at the door. Tom is delighted to see them and thrilled when Grace emerges from the cluster of women.
She reveals that Colette came to see her and explained everything. Colette helped her recognize that even if Tom had told her the truth, she wouldn’t have been open to it. They make amends and profess their love. Then Grace reveals that she’s pregnant with a baby girl. Tom is flooded with an overwhelming sense of love.
Chapters 19-26 Analysis
The novel’s final plot points compel Tom towards honesty, truth, healing, and redemption. Throughout the entirety of the novel, Tom has tried to dismiss his loss under the guise of healing. He has feared facing the depth of his sorrow over losing Honor and Chloe, convinced that admitting the Emotional Complexities of Death and Grief will only compromise his chances of survival. His fear of emotional discomfort has also caused him to hide the truth from Grace, a decision that has further compromised his chances of Finding Love After Loss. In Chapters 19-26, however, Tom’s relationships with the Sunday Blues, Colette, Annie, and Lauren compel him to own his secrets and his sorrow so he can pursue healing and renewal more sincerely.
Lauren’s profession of love for Tom and her attempts to sabotage his and Grace’s relationship are plot twists that force Tom towards a personal and moral turning point. Tom is just as shocked as Annie, Oliver, and even Honor to discover that Lauren has been in love with him for years. Her admission alters Tom’s understanding of reality. He is forced to face the truth in a myriad of ways as a result. The way he responds to Lauren’s confession and Grace’s departure from his life conveys how honesty leads to healing:
After the front door slammed, Tom felt the gut-wrenching pain of grief descend, his friends’ pitiful eyes upon him all over again. When Tom and I fell in love there was no jumping when the telephone rang or strained proposals, there were no secrets or locked safes. But he’d been on a collision course with Grace, whether Lauren had pressed play or not (298).
Lauren’s actions are presented as inexcusable. However, her behavior does force Tom to feel his grief and own his guilt in a raw way for the first time. In this passage, Honor uses diction like “wrenching,” “pain,” “descend,” “pitiful,” and “collision” to enact the emotional intensity of Tom’s awakening. He can no longer deny the profundity of his sorrow over Honor and Chloe or his shame over Grace.
The scene in which Colette helps Tom clean out the basement symbolizes Tom’s newfound willingness to move beyond his loss. In the wake of Honor and Chloe’s deaths, Colette becomes an expected voice of reason and archetypal guide for Tom. She has been distant throughout much of Tom and Honor’s marriage but assumes a more primary role in Tom’s life in the narrative present. She is still grieving her daughter and granddaughter, too, but she uses her sorrow as an opportunity for reconnection with her son-in-law and grandson. Her wisdom and graciousness guide Tom towards true healing. The basement setting is symbolic of hiding and avoidance. Colette convinces Tom to descend into this space—which represents the annals of his mind and heart—and to clean it out so he can move on. “These belongings,” she says of Honor’s and Chloe’s things, “are just things unless you talk about them. This jumper I’m holding is just a jumper to someone who didn’t know Honor” (303). Colette addresses Tom in a kind, patient, and understanding way. She acknowledges his grief while encouraging him to find new pathways to healing via logical reasoning. In cleaning out the basement, Tom begins to clean out the messy emotions in his mind, making room for newness, positivity, and regrowth.
Grace’s unexpected pregnancy and reunion with Tom on Christmas Day create a redemptive mood at the end of the novel. The baby is a symbol of redemption and new life, and Christmas is also a holiday associated with hope, which infuses the narrative atmosphere with positivity and possibility at its close. Further, the final scene affects a cyclical narrative structure. The novel began on Christmas, with Tom and Honor trying for a baby. The novel ends on Christmas six years later, with Tom and Grace reconciling and celebrating the conception of their daughter. These events evoke notions of life cycles and second chances. Tom and Grace have found grace, hope, and love together despite all they have lost in the past. New life, the novel implies, often arises from death and loss.
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