Chapters 14–16 Summary and Analysis
Chapter 14
In December of 2029, Claire Alkaitis’s prediction for Simone comes true: she tells her new coworkers about the time she worked for Jonathan Alkaitis over drinks at a cocktail party.
The rest of the office chorus meet different fates. Harvey Alexander, who served the shortest sentence due to his lengthy confession, retires to New Jersey and works at his sister’s ice cream shop. Joelle lives in her sister’s guest room, estranged from her ex-husband and children. Oskar is arrested a year after his initial release on drug charges. The rest of the staff view Enrico as a sort of “heroic figure” since he successfully escaped from the legal repercussions of his actions. He now lives in Mexico under an assumed identity. However, rather than being able to enjoy his escape, he instead lives with the fear that someday, federal agents will track him down and put him in prison like the rest of his colleagues.
Chapter 15
In 2005, two days before “why don’t you swallow broken glass?” was graffitied on the window of the Hotel Caiette, a very drunk Ella Kaspersky meets Paul in the hotel lobby. She tells him the story of her history with Alkaitis and asks him if would be willing to do her a favor in exchange for a large monetary tip. Paul agrees, and on the night that Alkaitis is set to arrive, he writes the phrase on the window. However, Alkaitis never sees it, and Paul succumbs to intense self-loathing upon witnessing the distress of the other employees and guests. He is particularly ashamed over Vincent’s clear distress, since he used the same method she once used to graffiti on the window of her school. At Walter’s behest, Paul departs that evening.
Walter, meanwhile, is left reeling following Alkaitis’s arrest in 2008. He himself was an investor in Alkaitis’s scheme, and he has lost everything. Furthermore, the Hotel Caiette has not been profitable, and the chances of anyone buying it are slim. Walter does not want to leave his beloved hotel, so he calls Alkaitis’s attorney and makes arrangements to stay on as the hotel’s caretaker. He spends the next decade living in the wilderness by himself, content to be “solitary, but not lonely.”
Paul and Ella Kaspersky meet again in December of 2018 at a party in Edinburgh. Paul’s career has flourished, but his heroin addiction has continued, and he is considering going back to rehab. Ella apologizes for asking him to write the graffiti that got him banished from Caiette all those years ago, and the two reflect on Alkaitis’s actions. Paul talks about his music career, confessing that everything he composes ends up sounding like Baltica. In his mind, he reflects on the fact that he saw Vincent in the audience the night that she attended his show. He has spent the ensuing years imagining the confrontation over his theft that the siblings never actually got to have.
After their conversation peters off, Ella departs and wishes Paul, who is clearly high on heroin, “good luck.” Paul attempts to return to his hotel, but he ends up resting in a doorway, overcome by exhaustion. He suddenly sees an apparition of Vincent. After conducting research, he later learns that the night he saw the apparition was actually the same night that Vincent died. He spends the rest of his life wondering if he truly saw her ghost or if he was “just drunk and high, lost in a foreign city far from home, delirious with exhaustion and seeing things in the dark.”
Chapter 16
On the night that Vincent...
(This entire section contains 1422 words.)
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dies, she and Geoffrey argue over her reckless habit of filming the ocean during turbulent weather. Geoffrey has offered to marry Vincent, and he wants to settle down with her on land. However, Vincent has found her home at sea, and she does not want to be dependent on anyone ever again. After the argument, Vincent goes out on deck—despite the captain’s warnings—and begins filming again.
While filming, Vincent suddenly sees an apparition of Olivia Collins. In her shock, she drops her camera and then falls overboard while trying to grab it. Olivia “pulls [Vincent] aside” as she is drowning and apologizes profusely, saying she had only wanted to check in on Vincent and did not think Vincent would be able to see her. Vincent is confused, but she slowly realizes that reality is disintegrating around her because she is dying.
Various other memories come to Vincent, including the graffiti incident from her youth and a more pleasant recollection of kissing Geoffrey and telling him she loved him. However, she then flashes to a scene of Mendoza telling Geoffrey that fleeing will make him look guilty in connection to Vincent’s death. An aggrieved Geoffrey, who truly did love Vincent, swears that he truly has no idea what happened to her and then disappears to avoid being arrested.
Vincent’s consciousness then drifts, transporting her to a scene from Alkaitis’s counterlife in a hotel lobby, where she sees both Alkaitis and the ghosts of Olivia, Faisal, and Yvette. When Alkaitis asks her why she is there, she tells him that she is visiting “from the ocean.” The scene then shifts to a doorway in Edinburgh, where Vincent sees Paul, who looks strung out and terrible. She also sees Mirella, sitting alone in a loft somewhere.
Vincent then recalls the conversation she had with Lenny Xavier about the importance of recognizing opportunities. She admits that even though she did not know all of the details of the Ponzi scheme, she did know that there was a scheme. She merely refused to acknowledge it for fear of disrupting her life.
She seeks out Paul again and finds him sitting outside of what is implied to be a rehab facility in Utah. He apologizes for everything, and she forgives him, saying that they “both got corrupted.” She then leaves him behind and reunites with her mother in Caiette, coming to understand that her mother’s death was indeed an accident. Her mother has been waiting for her for a very long time, and “she looks up in amazement” when Vincent calls out to her.
Analysis
The story ends where it began, as Vincent narrates her own death by drowning. While undeniably tragic, there is also a sense of closure that comes in death, as Vincent is able to revisit the people she knew in life and gain closure on long-standing mysteries. There is a similar sense of closure in the preceding chapters, as each character’s future is revealed. The office chorus—sans Enrico and Ron—face the consequences of their complicity and figure out how to spend the rest of their lives; Walter abandons humanity entirely and instead retreats into his voluntary isolation at the abandoned hotel; and Paul finally goes to rehab and gets therapy for his years of pent-up guilt and resentment.
The novel as a whole is centrally concerned with interconnectedness. Although not every character interacts extensively with the others, there is nonetheless an increasingly visible thread that ties all of their experiences together. Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme in particular has widespread impacts on the lives of Vincent and the investors, but smaller actions also produce ripple effects. Ella Kaspersky’s decision to hire Paul to write the graffiti freed Paul to pursue his career as a composer and drove Vincent to take the opportunity for escape that Alkaitis represented. Annika’s decision to reject Lenny Xavier led to her reuniting with Baltica, which in turn led to Paul’s accidental killing of Charlie Wu. Vincent’s mother’s fateful choice to take the canoe out that night completely changed her daughter’s life. No action is entirely without consequences, whether they be negative or positive, and Mandel seems to be asking readers to consider the ways in which small choices can make big impacts.
However, for all that the novel questions, it also answers. Death is not depicted as a terrifying and unknowable darkness. The cold of the ocean may be “annihilating,” but death frees Vincent to find answers and instances of closure she may never have found in life. The final scenes in which she absolves Paul and reunites with her mother are a reminder that death is the great equalizer. In life, humans are messy and prone to making mistakes; in death, there may yet be a chance to find peace.
