60 pages • 2 hours read
A Scatter Of Light
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Chapters 45-55Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 45 Summary
On Saturday, Aria, Tammy, and Matthew help Joan move to a “depressingly institutional” (284) rehabilitation facility. Doctors hope that, with speech and occupational therapy, Joan’s life can return to normal.
On Monday, Aria finds a local camera store to buy specialty film for Joan’s Rolleiflex. She then meets Steph at work for lunch, and they stop themselves from getting too intimate at the garden center. They get food from In-N-Out and drive to the lookout, where Steph tells her that she has decided to play Madchen’s next show. That evening, Aria brings the loaded camera for Joan to see, but Joan trembles too much to use it. She teaches Matthew how to use it, and while giving instructions, “she [seems] like her old self again” (287). Matthew takes a photo of Aria and Joan, and they set the self-timer to take a family photo.
Aria doesn’t narrate much for Tuesday and Wednesday, other than seeing Steph and visiting Joan.
Thursday morning, Aria finds her father, visibly upset, in the kitchen. He explains that Joan had a hemorrhagic stroke and died early that morning. Matthew breaks down in Aria’s arms, who is overwhelmed by her father’s grief. Analemma tries to comfort him, which causes Aria to break down. She and her father sit on the floor crying together while holding Analemma.
Chapter 46 Summary
When Tammy returns from the rehab facility, she and Matthew immediately start making arrangements, per Joan’s specified instructions. Aria will fly back to Boston a week later than planned so that she can attend the private memorial service. Aria walks to Tony’s house to deliver the news personally.
Aria then visits Steph at work to tell her, and she comforts Aria, who cries in her arms. They start to kiss, but Lisa’s sudden arrival interrupts them, and she demands an explanation. Steph attempts to explain and apologize, but the argument escalates. Lisa realizes that Steph and Aria have been having sex, even though Steph had assured Lisa she was just helping Aria come to terms with her sexuality (294). Steph chases after Lisa, leaving Aria alone at the garden center. She takes a moment to compose herself and leaves.
Chapter 47 Summary
Back in Woodacre, Aria receives a call from her mother, who shares her condolences. Alexis tells Aria that Joan’s art was exceptional, which reminds Aria of the conversation she shared with Joan about Alexis’s portrait. This momentary connection feels significant to Aria.
Chapter 48 Summary
The next day, Aria learns that Steph notified Tammy that she wouldn’t be doing the yard work anymore. After a voicemail and a text message, Steph finally responds to Aria and asks for some space. Aria talks to Tasha, who points out that Aria shuts everything out when something bad happens. Tasha encourages her to admit that she’s not okay and needs to process her emotions. Aria tears down her painting in the studio, shuts herself up in her room, and masturbates while thinking about Steph.
Chapter 49 Summary
Aria describes her guilt as a “shape-shifter” but admits that she enjoys indulging in the memories associated with it.
Chapter 50 Summary
In a last attempt to reach Steph, Aria calls Mel, who’s reluctant to speak with her. Aria shares Joan’s memorial information for Mel to give Steph, and Mel tells her that she’s “really sorry this happened” (300).
Chapter 51 Summary
Alexis knows hasn’t been taking care of himself—as Aria tends to push through difficult situations. Alexis then forwards Aria an email from their cousin Eddie, announcing that his sister, Lily, married her longtime partner, Kath. The attached newspaper article details the history of their relationship, and Aria feels “an unexpectedly vivid connection to them both” when looking at their photo (304).
Chapter 52 Summary
At the memorial service, Aria adds the recently developed photo from the rehab center to the table of photos. While the Buddhist practitioner from the retreat center leads the ceremony, Aria feels like she’s becoming “a sinkhole” (309).
After the service, Aria spots Steph leaving and chases after her. Aria returns the poetry book she borrowed, and they go for a walk. Steph tells her that their relationship was “a mistake” and was built on lies. She admits that she really did like Aria but that she needs to learn how to see herself. Aria desperately tells Steph that she’s in love with her, but Steph responds, “You think you are, but one day you’ll realize this was just a door opening for you,” and walks away (312).
Chapter 53 Summary
Matthew finds Aria crying uncontrollably in Joan’s car; he holds her and comforts her.
Chapter 54 Summary
After an extended family dinner, during which no one has an appetite, Matthew and Aria return to Woodacre for their last night in California. Aria goes to her grandparents’ room to return a photograph and discovers Joan’s unfinished project. Joan was creating a sculpture of Russ’s head, made up of small paper cubes she constructed from his many notes.
Chapter 55 Summary
Ten years later, Aria is at her first gallery show and is preparing to defend her PhD dissertation soon. Matthew arrives with his wife, Alexis has called in on video, and Tasha has driven in from New York. The biggest piece of Aria’s show is named “A Scatter of Light”—an abstract mixed-media painting that incorporates her first painting from Joan’s studio as well as the Madchen CD and postcard.
Aria gives a short speech and later connects with Tasha to tell her about the painting. She explains the illusion of a sunset and points out the painting from 2013 hidden under new paint. Aria reflects on the original painting: She was tempted to throw it away but finally learned to hear its “message,” just as Joan had advised.
Chapters 45-55 Analysis
The novel’s events come to sudden, devastating ends in the final chapters. Lo provides initial hope that Joan will make a full recovery, but the “mirage-like” image of Joan that Aria sees through the viewfinder of the Rolleiflex disappears for good when Joan’s second stroke proves fatal. Lo even conveys this abruptness through the narrative’s structure: Joan seems much improved one day, and Aria barely accounts for the two days that follow before hearing the news of her grandmother’s death.
The theme of Healing from Loss and Grief comes to the forefront in these chapters. The grief of losing Joan affects the West family in distinctly different ways: Tammy approaches everything with practicality and little emotion, while Matthew stays quietly upset and struggles to take care of himself. Aria disengages from feelings completely, becoming “blank inside,” to avoid the pain of losing both Joan and Steph. Alexis acknowledges both Aria’s and Matthew’s coping mechanisms, and it surprises Aria to realize that her mother knows her and her father better than she thought. The care that Alexis exhibits for Matthew more than a decade after their divorce encourages Aria to work on her relationship with her mother.
An earlier phone call with Alexis provides Aria with a momentary revelation: “[F]or a split second the connection between Joan, my mother, and [Aria] seemed crystal clear, revelatory [...] but the moment vanished as quickly as it came” (296). Aria begins to understand that she comes from a lineage of women artists, and though she doesn’t see where she stands among them just yet, that part of her identity has started to unfurl. Aria’s learning about her relative Lily Hu and her marriage to Kath—which bridges Lo’s 2021 novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club, with this novel—strengthens Aria’s sense of self: Looking at Lily, a Chinese American woman who had a successful career as a scientist and is openly queer, married to the love of her life, affirms that a similar future like possible for Aria, highlighting the theme of Discovering and Embracing Queer Identity.
This future, however, isn’t one that she’ll experience with Steph. The grief of the breakup compounds the grief of losing her grandmother. Aria and Steph’s secret affair reaches its end when Lisa discovers the ironic and dishonest way Steph has been helping Aria “[deal] with coming out” (294). It devastates Aria to see Steph chase after Lisa—the second time she has run after her when Lisa interrupts their kiss—because this implies that Aria was never Steph’s true priority. Aria’s phone call with Mel directly parallels the conversation that Aria had with Haley, but this time Aria is on the receiving end of things. The uncomfortable truth is that no one can change Steph’s feelings or decisions for her, no matter how desperately Aria wishes things were different. Aria and Steph’s actions caused another person pain, and they both must endure the consequences. The language that Lo uses for Aria and Steph’s last conversation is dramatic and stilted, reflecting how jarring and painful the experience is for Aria. Steph, having a few years of additional relationship experience, unhappily takes accountability for her role in this futile relationship and knows that she’s just “a stop on [Aria’s] journey” (311). Although Aria doesn’t want to believe her, she catalogs this journey through her painting.
The novel concludes 10 years later, with a final chapter that mirrors the first. Aria is back at an art show opening—this time her own. Emphasizing the theme of Pursuing Dreams, she has become a successful artist as well as a PhD candidate at MIT, following in both of her grandparents’ footsteps. Aria has learned to use art to process and heal, just as Joan did with her final sculpture of Russ. Aria’s favorite (and titular) painting, which she titles “A Scatter of Light,” incorporates physical reminders of her transformative summer in Woodacre, showing that those experiences are a part of her and that she has integrated her past self with the present.
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