So Old, So Young

Grant Ginder

49 pages 1-hour read

Grant Ginder

So Old, So Young

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2026

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Part 6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of pregnancy loss, substance use, addiction, illness, and death.

Part 6: “Hudson Street: April 27, 2024”

Part 6, Chapter 34 Summary: “Mia: 8:30 am”

In 2024, after flying back to New York for Adam’s funeral, Mia wakes up “jetlagged and confused” (315). She heads out to the restaurant where she agreed to meet Lev before attending the memorial service. They catch up on their lives, work, and relationships. Lev is dating someone new, while Mia is single. 


Toward the end of the meal, Lev muses on what would have happened if Mia hadn’t lost the pregnancy. Mia asserts that everything worked out for the best.

Part 6, Chapter 35 Summary: “Sasha: 9:45 am”

Sasha and Theo attend their therapy session with Roz before the memorial. Roz is sympathetic to their loss, but Sasha resents her for enforcing her cancellation policy despite the circumstances. 


The conversation turns from Adam’s death to Sasha and Theo’s relationship. Theo shares how differently he’s been feeling about Sasha since realizing how much she does for the family. Roz calls on Sasha to share her feelings. Although Sasha doesn’t want to be with Theo anymore, she shares that they had sex last night for the first time in a year. Roz is enthusiastic until Sasha asserts that the experience didn’t change how she sees Theo—she was only sad about Adam and wanted comfort.

Part 6, Chapter 36 Summary: “Mia: 10:30 am”

Mia goes to the church for Adam’s memorial, immediately running into Courtney and Nina. Mia feels annoyed with Courtney and Mia’s remarks on the church, the photos of Adam, and death in general.


Wandering into the church garden, Mia reflects on how much has changed so fast. A week earlier, Adam was still alive, and she could have called him to make amends. She never apologized for what happened in Montclair. She remembers being out with friends when she noticed “seven missed calls” from Richie (335). On the phone, Richie explained that Adam had been biking when he died suddenly from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a rare genetic disorder. Mia was shocked, given what Adam had told her about his genetic testing. Amidst tears, Mia found herself overcome by memories of her friendship with Adam. 


Now, she watches Rami with his and Adam’s daughter Lucy. Mia approaches and expresses her condolences. Rami debates whether or not to wait to begin the service until Richie arrives. He decides to get started, tired of always waiting for Richie.

Part 6, Chapter 37 Summary: “Marco: 11:00 am”

From his place at the back of the church, Marco watches Mia enter with Rami and Nina, but she fails to notice him. Alison engages him in conversation. They chat about their last encounters with Adam. Marco feels uncomfortable listening to Alison’s story about seeing Adam last, as if his and Adam’s history isn’t significant enough. He felt the same way when he tried to explain his relationship with Adam to Adam’s aunt when he first arrived.


Marco flew into New York just a few hours ago. Before leaving DC, Emily had come over to Marco’s to collect their two children with her new partner, David. Marco had tried convincing her to attend the funeral, but she and David had made plans to show the girls David’s new house. She also didn’t understand why Marco was going, given his recent estrangement from his friends. When Marco took offense, Emily accused him of only going so he could see Mia, insisting they divorced because Marco was still in love with her. Marco had insisted otherwise, but seeing Mia now, he wonders if Emily was right.


Outside after the service, Marco and Mia chat about their lives and work. Marco tries to dismiss his heavy feelings and plaguing guilt to focus on the moment. He and Mia decide to head to the repast together.

Part 6, Chapter 38 Summary: “Richie: 12:00 pm”

Richie arrives at the venue for the repast, posting up at the bar and ordering a drink. Sitting alone, he muses on his last encounter with Adam a few months ago. Richie had recently gotten sober again and ran into Adam outside his AA meeting on Grove Street. They walked together, reminiscing on the start of their relationship and the time they’d spent in New York. Adam informed Richie he’d found a shoebox of his old belongings in his apartment and offered to return it. Before parting ways, they made plans to meet up after the holidays. A few days later, Adam dropped off the box with Richie’s doorman, but Richie stowed it unopened in his closet. Just two months later, Adam was dead.


Now, Richie intermittently chats with the bartender. Studying the bourbon in front of him, he considers drinking it but asks the bartender to remove his glass when he remembers some of his last interactions with Adam. She takes the glass just as his friends start arriving.

Part 6, Chapter 39 Summary: “Mia: 12:30 pm”

Mia studies the photos of Adam around the venue before joining Richie at the bar. She hasn’t seen him since flying with him to California before he checked himself back into rehab. An emotional Richie laments Adam’s death, admitting how much he loved him. Together, the friends study Adam’s photos and catch up on life. 


While Richie is describing his recent struggles with sobriety to Mia, Marco surfaces and offers to get Mia a drink. Sasha notices Marco touch her lower back and remarks on their dynamic. Mia admits she doesn’t know if there is something between them. Sasha withholds judgment, reminding her she is the one who had an affair with Mitch. They again apologize to each other for what happened in Montclair, agreeing to leave the past behind. 


They find a picture of themselves from a New Year’s party years prior. Mia muses on how much they have experienced since and how little they knew about what was coming. The friends admit their wrongs again and express relief that they’re still in each other’s lives.

Part 6 Analysis

The final chapters of the novel compel the main characters to reunite under unprecedented circumstances, challenging them to overcome their wrongs and make amends to preserve their friendships. Each section of the novel inspires the characters to spend time together for holidays, birthdays, or weddings. These events are supposed to induce an air of celebration, challenging the characters to find joy in one another’s company even when they struggle to do so. By way of contrast, Adam’s death and funeral in Part 6 effect a somber, contemplative mood. Losing their friend changes how Mia, Marco, Richie, and Sasha relate to and regard each other. Their loss also alters how they understand their shared history. Now that one of them is gone, they must reconsider who they have been to each other and which facets of their friend group they might hold onto.


Falling at the end of the novel, Adam’s death brings The Tension Between Chosen Family and Individual Identity to its culmination. The author uses flashback and imagery to underscore how the passage of time has impacted the friends as individuals and as a collective. While each character experiences and processes Adam’s death differently, Mia, Marco, Richie, and Sasha all find themselves overcome by memories of the time they spent with their late friend. For Mia, merely returning to New York—the city where she spent so much of her adulthood—compels her mind into scenes from the past and who she used to be. 


Traversing the familiar streets, she “found herself remembering a long list of mundane meals, and mediocre parties, and pointless arguments. Of busted apartments, and promising first kisses, and disappointing breakups, and drunken afternoons, and painful mornings” (318). Strung together in this manner, Mia’s list of quotidian memories gains depth and importance through accumulation. Her memories might not appear significant upon first glance—particularly given the adjectives attached to them—but together they make up the life she once spent in New York with her close friends. Such memories ground her in the found family she relied on for many years and help her rediscover her authentic self.


Marco, Sasha, and Richie similarly drift into memories throughout the memorial and repast, which induces a melancholic, reflective mood in all of them as they consider Time as a Test of Bonds Between People. They remember all the time they spent with Adam over the years and their last interactions with him—recollections which underscore the remarkable sustainability of their friendships. In Chapter 38, for example, Richie remembers sharing space with Adam the last time they ran into each other and “thinking how incredible it was that after all these years they could still sit here together, staring out a window into the blue-gray city, like it was the most natural thing in the world” (360). Such memories become even more tangible when the friends gather at the repast and study old photos from Adam’s life. 


In the final chapter, Mia and Sasha connect over a photo of them at a New Year’s party—imagery which enforces circularity in the novel, echoing the party scenes from Part 2. Since the characters are so young in the photo, it underscores how much time has passed and how much has changed. At the same time, Sasha and Mia are able to draw a more hopeful conclusion: “We haven’t changed all that much” (369). Their friendships have also survived. The photos are emblematic of the characters’ history, how much they have undergone together, and how intensely they continue to value one another. Time has indeed challenged their bonds, but it has not broken them.

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