53 pages • 1 hour read
On Mystic Lake
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Part 2, Chapters 20-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary
Nick asks Annie if she is still in love with Blake. She does not think it would be possible to still be in love with him, but he is her family, and she does not think a person can ever really stop loving family members. She tells him that Blake used to make fun of her hobbies, and he considered writing to be a hobby of hers. She packed away the two books she wrote. She thinks that Nick and Izzy have returned a sense of her identity to her, but Nick refutes this and claims that she fought to get herself back.
Annie’s father asks her about her relationship with Nick. She tells him that she is not in love with Nick, but she is not sure if that is true. She says that right now she is living for herself. He tells Annie that she is very strong and has a steel core, and that she cannot understand weakness because she has never really understood hopelessness. Annie knows she has another life and a daughter who will soon be home from London. She tells Nick that she does not want to hurt him, and he tells her that he understands that their situation will not last forever. Blake calls and asks Annie to come home for the weekend, and she turns him down.
Chapter 21 Summary
Blake calls Hank’s house to find Annie, and Hank gives him directions. Blake has come to realize that his life does not work well without Annie. One day he could not find a tie he wanted, and Suzannah just told him to clean up the mess he made. He knows that Annie would have known where to find the tie. When Blake sees Annie, it takes him a moment to adjust to her haircut and new clothes. Izzy is upset because she wanted Annie to go with them to get ice cream, but Annie tells her that she has to talk to Blake. She tells him she will meet him at a diner in a few minutes.
Blake believes that everything will be okay once he and Annie talk because he knows how reliable she is. She is flippant when he asks about her hair, and her decision to order a beer surprises him. He also notices that she is not wearing her wedding ring. The waitress addresses Annie as Miss Bourne, and Annie asks Blake how Suzannah is. He is surprised by how hard Annie is making the conversation. He tells her that he made a mistake, but his confidence wavers when he does not get the eager reaction he expected. He tells her that he wants to come home, but she tells him that his leaving was a favor to her because she had let herself disappear and she is no longer that invisible person. When he claims that she is still his Annie, she tells him that she is her own Annie. When she tells him that she met someone, he realizes that she has slept with Nick and has to hold back his fury. She rejects his attempt to “forgive” her, and he feels ashamed and professes his love for her, but she does not believe him. He asks her to give them a chance, she tells him that they can discuss it when she returns to California.
Chapter 22 Summary
When Annie returns, she tells Nick what Blake told her. She does not know what she will do because she has almost succeeded in letting go of her love for Blake. She does not want to hurt Nick, but she wants to be honest. She tells him that after the divorce she will be in California alone, but he does not want hope if she cannot fulfill those hopes.
She has her return appointment with the doctor, and she learns that she is pregnant with Blake’s child. This is a high-risk pregnancy because of her pregnancy with Adrian, and she has to return to California immediately. She does not want to go back; she wants to stay with Izzy and Nick, but Mystic does not have adequate perinatal and NICU resources. She knows that going back to California is the right thing to do. Nick is understanding of Annie’s desire for Blake to know his child.
Chapter 23 Summary
Nick takes Annie to see a high-risk pregnancy specialist in Seattle and holds her hand when she has the ultrasound. He realizes that Annie has given him everything by helping him to break free of his alcohol addiction and to reconnect with Izzy. She asks Nick to promise her that he will go back to work and reminds him that just because something causes pain does not mean a person should give it up. Her father gives her a photo album of pictures of her childhood. There are very few of her mother. Hank reminds Annie that her mother loved her. He thought that Annie would be better if she forgot her mother, but he realizes that that was wrong. That is why they never really talked about Annie’s mother. She forgives him.
Annie says goodbye to Nick, and they profess their love for each other. Izzy says that she wishes Annie were her mother. She asks if Annie and Natalie can come live in Mystic, but Annie tells her that their home is in California and that her baby’s father misses her. Nick follows Annie’s car slowly out of town from a distance. He goes into Zoe’s and is served a drink, but he wants Izzy’s trust more than he wants a drink. He leaves without taking a sip and runs until he is out of breath. He knows that he owes it to Izzy not to fall apart. He suddenly sees Gina Piccolo, who tells him that a boy he knows died of an overdose. She has come looking for him because she needs help. He remembers Annie asking him if he would really give up caring about people just because caring might cause him pain. He agrees to help Gina and tells Joe that he will come back to work. He stands up at the AA meeting and tells his story.
Part 2, Chapters 20-23 Analysis
In this section of the novel, Annie’s love for Blake in Chapter 20 demonstrates the attitude the novel takes toward love, mainly that it can change but that it will always unite people. At this point in her life, Blake has hurt Annie in the worst way that he could. He was a bad husband while they were married, and then he left her when he found someone else. He was also a poor father to their daughter. Despite all of this, she still has feelings for him because they were a family for so long; those emotions do not simply vanish just because she is no longer in love with him, and thus, Hannah takes this opportunity to explore an unusual angle of The Bonds Between Friends and Family. Throughout the novel, love changes forms often, but it never disappears entirely; whether people still love each other or whether they merely hold on to the memory of the love that used to be. This is primarily seen through the relationship between Annie and Blake.
The bond between family is also demonstrated in the support that Hank provides for Annie. While he consistently tells her that Blake will come back to her and seems to believe that this is the best possible outcome for her, he still finds ways to teach her that she is stronger than she believes herself to be. Annie believes she gave up everything for her husband and daughter, and she believes she failed at the endeavor that she tried hardest to succeed at: raising her family. This has made her feel uncertain about herself. Through her father’s and Nick’s eyes, however, she is able to see that she does more in life than she thought herself to be capable of achieving. When she tells Nick that he helped bring her back to life, he tells her that she did that on her own. When she talks to her father about Nick, her father tells her that she is as strong as steel. Despite being there for and taking care of everyone in her life for so long, Annie never saw herself as a strong person. This begins to change as she sees herself through the eyes of Nick and her father. This shows how important the insights of others can be in helping a person to discover their own identity and reinvent themselves.
Blake’s revelation of why he wants Annie back demonstrates the selfish expectations he has of their relationship, for it is clear that he finds Suzannah’s refusal to take care of every mundane domestic detail to be disconcerting at best. At first he liked being with Suzannah because she seemed intelligent and exciting. She earned the status of junior partner at the firm, demonstrating that she puts in many hours at work, and this dynamic inevitably translates to quite a different dynamic at home. Her lack of attention to the domestic details that Annie constantly managed makes him realize that life with Annie was a much easier form of existence for him. Thus, it is not love of his wife that brings him to Mystic. He does not miss her personality or any other part of her. Instead, he simply misses her caretaking, and given her past patterns of behavior, he believes that she will return to him easily, without asking for much in return. This misguided attitude, more than anything else, convinces Annie of The Futility of Trying to Change People.
Not only has Blake never thought much about Annie’s needs, but he also underestimates her once he wants to get her back. He believes it will be easy to make amends because he imagines her to be pining for him rather than living her life independently. At first he thinks all he needs to do is make a phone call, but she refuses to come home. Then he goes to Mystic to try to get her to come home, and she still refuses. He is shocked not only by her physical change but also by her refusal to come running back to him. This shows that he never really considered how the separation would have changed her. He expected her to remain devoted to him, and therefore, leaving her never seemed like a risk because he thought he could undo any damage with just a word. When she asserts her independence, it catches him off guard.
As Annie battles the remaining problems in her own situation, Nick finally beats his feelings of impotence and actively faces his challenges after Annie leaves Mystic. Although his first instinct is to go to a bar, he leaves again without touching a drink, proving to himself that he can overcome his cravings for Izzy’s sake. It is also significant that he chooses to help Gina and return to his job despite the pain he has suffered as a police officer. While he started out the novel feeling like he could not help anyone including himself, he now has more realistic expectations. He understands The Futility of Trying to Change People who do not want to change, but he knows that he can help some people, and that conviction gives him new courage to keep trying. He has decided that empathy is not a harmful trait, and he has learned that it is worth making the effort to help those who want help.
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By Kristin Hannah
