Sunburn

The final section of the text takes place two years after Lucy leaves Crossmore. This time jump highlights how Lucy’s decision has long-lasting effects, bridging the gap between her as a teenager who does not know what the future holds to and her as an adult, living with the results of her prior decisions. The time jump also shifts the tone from immediacy to reflection, allowing the consequences of earlier choices to be seen in relief rather than in the heat of the moment. Lucy keeps a distance between herself and Martin, though she does have sex with him, which she critically phrases as “he had sex with me” (219), highlighting the difference between her unifying sex with Susannah and the impersonal, perfunctory sex she has with Martin. Even with Geraldine, Lucy notes how “it makes [her] churn for Susannah’s old way of loving” (212). Lucy’s dissatisfaction is a critical marker: Lucy’s journey is not only about coming to terms with her sexuality but also about accepting the love she feels for Susannah. Not only is Lucy unhappy having sex with men, but she is also unhappy having sex with anyone who is not Susannah. This distinction frames Susannah not as a generic object of same-sex desire but as the singular emotional and erotic match for Lucy, elevating their bond beyond mere category and highlighting The Significance of Sexual Awakening.

Throughout this time, Lucy maintains a nightly phone call with her mother, a ritual that underscores her fear of disappointing or losing her. Lucy even worries that her mother can somehow see her smoking through the phone, a sign of how deeply internalized her mother’s gaze remains. Her eventual return to Crossmore, then, is not simply a homecoming but rather an act of resistance and authenticity. She tells her mother that she is coming back, but instead of going home, she goes straight to Croft Hall, placing her truth before her family’s approval.

While Lucy struggles with her own life in Dublin, she reignites her connection to Susannah via letters and email, but these are secret, as neither Martin nor Lucy’s mother know about their connection. The letters operate as a double symbol; on one level, they are tangible relics of intimacy, and on another, they are evidence of a self that Lucy is still unwilling to live openly. The letters represent both the secrecy and the intensity of Lucy and Susannah’s relationship, foreshadowing them as a critical element in Lucy’s downfall. When Martin finds Lucy’s letters, though, he quickly forgives Lucy. Instead of falling more in love with her, Martin accepts her for who she is, allowing her to leave and be free. In doing so, Martin subverts the familiar trope of the spurned male lover, refusing to punish or resent Lucy for her truth. His response is mature and generous, standing as one of the few sources of unconditional love in her life besides Susannah. In a community where belonging is often conditional, Martin’s acceptance feels radical in its kindness. His reaction exposes a subtle irony: The person most capable of accepting Lucy is the one she has been pretending for all along. After finding the letters, Lucy realizes, “Still he loves me. He is still Martin. I am still Lucy” (238), but she adds that Martin pulls a blanket over them “before [she is] gone forever” (238). Though Lucy has always been herself, the Lucy whom Martin knows is a fabrication she made to protect herself from rejection. When Lucy says that she will be “gone forever,” she is referring to that fabricated self since she is about to become the Lucy hidden in her letters, the Lucy only Susannah knows.

Lucy as a character is defined as much by repression as by the chosen stagnancy she maintains for safety. She tries to build a life with Martin and finds it unbearable; she then says goodbye to that former self as she lies with him under the blanket on their last night together. Her interior life is dominated by thinking, worrying, and avoiding; when Geraldine develops feelings for her, she retreats until the news of Susannah’s relationships drives her to seek Geraldine’s comfort. This cycle of using others and then punishing herself for it, often obsessively, makes her both sympathetic and frustrating. Lucy’s self-reproach functions as a kind of moral bookkeeping, as though guilt could undo harm, yet it also traps her in inaction. She is a character whose most decisive moments emerge not in grand declarations but in small acts: whom she visits first upon returning, whom she leaves behind, and whom she dares to love openly.

Though a part of the distinction between Lucy and Susannah is wealth, as Susannah has the monetary safety to come out as a lesbian without caring about social consequences, the final section of the text reveals how Susannah’s wealth is also a representation of her freedom. While Lucy is with Martin, Susannah travels the world, sleeps with different women, tries a relationship with a man, and grows as a person. Though money is needed for traveling, the act of traveling is a metaphor for personal exploration. Susannah’s physical movement mirrors her emotional movement, while Lucy’s geographical stasis mirrors her emotional stagnation. While physically exploring Central and South America, Susannah is also discovering herself, which she can only do because she is open and honest about who she is. Lucy’s real poverty is in her identity, which she stifles and refuses to nurture. Her exploration with Geraldine is insignificant because it is still a secret, and she fears that Geraldine will want more than Lucy can provide. As such, Lucy does not go to meet Susannah in Peru or Colombia, instead meeting her back at Croft Hall in Crossmore, where the romance and undoing both occurred. The return to Crossmore closes the geographic and emotional loop of the novel, suggesting that self-confrontation must happen on home ground before any true departure can succeed. To begin a free life with Susannah, Lucy first has to go back to her roots, rebuilding her identity from the same foundation that prevented her from expressing her true self. Lucy’s flaw throughout the novel is her inability to confront herself and her problems, and returning to Crossmore is the first step in correcting that mistake.

In this way, the ending offers a restrained form of resolution: Lucy has not yet fully escaped the forces that shaped her, but her choice to knock on Susannah’s door signals a willingness to act rather than retreat. The novel closes not with certainty but with possibility, leaving the reader in the charged pause between return and renewal. Lucy’s return to Susannah, who seems to have been waiting all along, offers a realization of Overcoming Obstacles in Forbidden Love.