55 pages • 1-hour read
Same Time Next Summer
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Part 2, Chapters 40-49Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Now”
Part 2, Chapter 40 Summary
Laurel makes margaritas before dinner. Sam doesn’t finish hers, afraid of getting drunk. She notices that Jack has several and gets tipsy fast. At one point, he alludes to Sam’s work issues and she fears he’ll reveal more. She’s grateful when he goes to bed before revealing the truth.
Unable to sleep or focus on her book, Sam stays awake thinking about Jack, work, and the future. Then she realizes she needs to talk to Wyatt and sneaks into the treehouse. She’s surprised by how he’s changed the space. They talk about the past and apologize for hurting each other. Wyatt admits he didn’t realize how hurt Sam was and that he feared returning to the beach all those years ago. They catch up about their personal lives, too. Sam hears herself admitting that she might lose her job. She explains that Eleanor is upset with her for suggesting a client stage a flash mob to resolve their HR problem. The client loved the idea but it wasn’t in line with Human Corps’s standards. She and Wyatt laugh about the issue, and Sam feels better.
Sam then asks about Wyatt’s work and girlfriend. He insists he isn’t dating anyone. She reaches out for his hand, unable to resist touching her. He suggests she leave before anything else happens.
Part 2, Chapter 41 Summary
Sam and Gracie go surfing the next morning. In the water, Sam reflects on her conversation with Wyatt, glad they can be friends. He appears in the water shortly thereafter and joins her and Gracie. In the middle of their conversation, Sam announces that she wants to be an art teacher. They’re thrilled with the idea, but Sam wishes she hadn’t said anything. In the house afterwards, Laurel notices that Sam seems happy. She tells Laurel she and Wyatt talked and are going to be friends.
Part 2, Chapter 42 Summary
On Sam and Jack’s last night on Long Island, Laurel and Travis ask Wyatt for help booking a dinner reservation at the Old Sloop as they’re booked for the festival. The Sloop agrees to the reservation as long as Wyatt attends.
Sam wears a white dress to dinner. She tells herself she feels fine about Wyatt coming because they’re friends now. Over dinner, the wedding comes up, and Sam feels suddenly hot and stuffy.
Part 2, Chapter 43 Summary
The dinner conversation turns to Carlyle Trickett. Wyatt reveals that when they first met in Los Angeles, Carlyle said he didn’t have a “future as a singer” (182). Sam notices Jack’s condescending manner and Wyatt’s nonreactive response. After dinner, the parents and grandparents go home, but the younger family members go to the Owl Barn to see the music festival. During the event, Sam is surprised when the crowd cheers for Wyatt and insists he play for them. He acquiesces and plays “Sam, I Am.” After he finishes, Sam realizes he wrote the song, not Missy McGee, and that it’s about her. She races outside, feeling confused and upset. Jack doesn’t follow.
Part 2, Chapter 44 Summary
Sam sits outside the barn and googles Wyatt, discovering that he has written all of Missy McGee’s songs over the past seven years. Feeling suddenly young and embarrassed, she texts Bill for a ride home. Wyatt comes out and gets in the car when Bill arrives. On the ride home, Sam confronts Wyatt about hiding his success. Wyatt says all of his songs are about her and that he’s always loved her. At the house, Bill goes inside, leaving Sam and Wyatt in the car. Sam tells Wyatt how hurt she was when he left her and how hurt she feels that he didn’t contact her. He explains his side of the story, apologizing again and insisting he just wants her to be happy. Sam starts crying, and Wyatt wipes away her tears. She asks what would have happened if she’d googled and called him earlier, but he says it “doesn’t matter now” (192).
Part 2, Chapter 45 Summary
Over breakfast, Sam notices that Wyatt isn’t playing his guitar. The family talks about the wedding, and everyone agrees they’ll get married at the inn.
Sam and Jack don’t talk for most of the ride back to Manhattan. Sam is worrying about work and thinking about the future. She expresses her concerns about her job to Jack, suddenly revealing her desire to teach art. Jack takes her hand and Sam feels momentarily comforted. However, Jack tells her teaching is a bad idea and insists she look for something else in HR. Sam doesn’t say anything. Instead she texts Travis Wyatt’s music career. Then she texts Wyatt, and they agree to stay in touch.
Part 2, Chapter 46 Summary
On Monday morning, Jack reassures Sam that if she gets fired she’ll find another job. After he leaves, she gets ready for her meeting with Eleanor, while thinking about the flash mob incident, the wedding, and Wyatt. She and Wyatt text beforehand, and he reminds her not to “beg for a job” (201) she doesn’t want.
At the office, Eleanor scolds Sam for going against protocol but agrees to let her keep her job. However, Sam won’t be interfacing with clients anymore. Relieved, Sam thanks her.
Sam takes a walk afterwards and considers texting Wyatt. She texts Jack instead. That night, he brings her flowers to congratulate her. He assures her she’ll be back in order soon. That evening, Sam and Wyatt text about the outcome of her meeting.
Part 2, Chapter 47 Summary
Sam and her parents book the Old Sloop for the wedding and order the invitations. Meanwhile, Sam tries to settle back into work. One day, Laurel calls while Sam is in the park. She asks if Sam can come back to Long Island to choose the flowers, cake, and linens. That evening, Sam poses the plan to Jack, but he has no interest in returning to the beach, insisting her parents’ life there is too much. He also wants to go to the US Open the weekend she wants to go to Long Island.
Sam takes the train to Long Island alone. On the way, she thinks about Jack, her family, and becoming an art teacher. Then she and Wyatt start texting, and she reveals she’s returning to Long Island herself. He says he’s coming into town for the weekend to check on some things for Marion and will see her there. Sam feels anxious and excited.
Part 2, Chapter 48 Summary
Travis gives Sam a ride home from the train station. They talk about Wyatt, Jack, their parents, and life on Long Island on the drive. Back home, they hang out and continue chatting on the beach. Travis apologizes for not telling Sam about Wyatt’s music career, admitting that he didn’t want to upset Sam when she was just starting to heal after the breakup.
In the morning, Sam and Laurel look at the wedding invitations together. They’re plain white, but Laurel suggests painting them. Sam loves the idea but secretly knows Jack won’t approve.
Part 2, Chapter 49 Summary
An hour later, Sam greets Wyatt when he gets in from the airport. They decide to go to the diner before surfing later. Over breakfast, Sam asks Wyatt about his life in California. He reveals that he owns a house in Malibu and that Michael lives with him. They talk about Wyatt’s music, too. He’s been writing for Missy for a long time even though he doesn’t like her style. He also talks about his work at the gas station, expressing his love for fixing cars. Sam realizes this is the best version of Wyatt.
Part 2, Chapters 40-49 Analysis
Monaghan shifts the narrative into the present in Part 2, raising the narrative stakes as the plot progresses toward the climax. In Part 1, the narrative toggles between scenes from Sam’s life in the present and scenes from her youthful romance with Wyatt years prior, while Part 2 remains fixed in one temporal era and progresses chronologically forward through time. This structural shift highlights Sam’s attempts to confront the choices that she’s made and the person she’s become as she takes on The Challenge of Navigating Past and Present Relationships.
Monaghan positions Sam’s conversation with Wyatt in the treehouse as a key moment in their romantic arc that marks a turning point in their Journeys of Self-Discovery and Personal Growth. Although Sam and Wyatt have encountered one another through Sam’s time on Long Island, their evening in the treehouse is the first time that they’ve had an extended and open conversation as adults. The treehouse setting fosters this moment of intimacy and connection both for its privacy and as an emotionally significant place in their relationship. In their childhood and their present, the treehouse represents a safe space where they can talk as equals. Throughout this scene, Sam and Wyatt not only make amends, but Sam realizes that “it was [their] friendship that [she] was mourning all those years” and that Wyatt “is the “one person on earth [she] can open up to” (171). The way that they talk to one another in this scene mirrors their former mode of communication as teenagers. Sam is light, honest, and open. She doesn’t hide or tailor her feelings on Wyatt’s behalf. This moment grants the characters a new beginning as friends and helps Sam to remember who she once was, catalyzing the process of reconciling her past and present selves. Meanwhile, Sam’s discoveries about Wyatt’s career help her to understand that Wyatt still loves her. His songs reify the novel’s thematic interest in The Enduring Impact of First Love and complicate Sam’s feelings in the present. Monaghan uses these dynamics to illustrate the ways in which youthful experiences and relationships continue to shape the individual’s sense of self into their adulthood.
Monaghan reinforces the significance of Sam and Wyatt’s treehouse conversation by emphasizing Sam’s increased self-reflection and desire for change on the ride back to Manhattan. Sam’s drive from Long Island back into the city parallels her end-of-summer trips from childhood. The drive gives her the time to think about everything that’s happened over the previous week and to reckon with its implications for her current relationship and plans for the future. The car ride with Jack augments the differences between the two characters and instigates new internal conflicts for Sam. Throughout her time on Long Island, Jack’s character remains peripheral, absorbed into the background of Sam’s family life. In the car, Sam and Jack are alone with each other. The divide between them becomes glaring when Jack is dismissive of her idea “to teach art” (196). Instead of supporting her the way Wyatt did and affirming her, Jack insists that she has “to make the best of” her HR background (196). His lack of support sharply contrasts with Wyatt’s encouragement, challenging the way Sam understands her present relationship in relation to her past relationship.
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