Summary
The Liars take kayaks out. Mirren says Cadence shouldn’t come because of her head, but Cadence goes along anyway. They paddle to an inlet and pull the kayaks on shore. The boys jump off cliffs into the water. Mirren discourages Cadence from doing it too, but Cadence overcomes her own resistance and jumps in. She briefly recalls being unconscious underwater, but reassures herself she is fine and can swim to shore.
Cadence wakes up cold that night. She has a vivid memory of Aunt Carrie bent over and crying, wearing Johnny’s wind jacket. Cadence goes down to the Cuddledown kitchen, which is messy. Mirren is there. Cadence asks about Carrie crying. Mirren is reluctant to give straight answers, saying it’s best she remembers in her own time. Cadence says she suspects it was more than hitting her head during a swim: she believes she might have been raped or attacked or something like that. Mirren says she doesn’t know what to tell Cadence. The next morning, there is a tire swing out front of Windemere. It is like the old one that swung in front of Clairmont, and that Cadence and Gat kissed on. Inside the tire is an envelope addressed to Cady in Gat’s handwriting. A dozen dried beach roses spill out when she opens it.
In Part 4, Cadence recalls how she, Johnny, Mirren, and Gat lit a fire to burn down Clairmont. Firefighting boats from the Vineyard and Woods Hole come to help put it out. Then she is in the water, down to the rocky bottom. The memory cuts to her waking in Windemere on her last week at Beechwood. She remembers now: on a night when the staff were off, and everyone else had taken boats across the bay, the Liars “burned not a home, but a symbol.”
Cadence goes to Cuddledown and wakes Johnny. She tells him they set a fire. Johnny says the aunts got drunk, night after night. They screamed at each other, fighting over grandmother’s things, but most of all the real estate and money. Johnny’s mother was pushing him to disparage Cadence as the eldest and make a power play to become the primary heir. Cadence recalls how her mother made her send cards to her grandfather often after grandmother died. Cards “just to remind him that [she] care[d].” Cadence thought the letters were false, and not a genuine avowal of her actual love for him. But her mother knew he was vulnerable and thinking about the future. Meanwhile, all the aunts fought over who should inherit what, encouraging their children to help lobby for their competing interests. Neither Mirren nor Cadence did as their mothers asked and “begged Granddad for the fucking tablecloths.”
Cadence continues to recall what happened the summer of her accident. She and Gat go swimming and then kiss in the attic. They fall in love and don’t speak of Raquel. At dinner on July 14, Cadence’s grandfather asks the Liars what they think about his plan to leave a significant portion of his estate to Harvard, his alma mater, so they can build a student center with his name on it. He jokes about what to name it, but through the laughter, Cadence knows her mother and aunts all depend on trust money that won’t last forever. Cadence says, “He wasn’t involving the family in his financial plans. He was making a threat.”
At another dinner several nights later, Granddad asks Cadence’s mother if she feels lonely in Windemere; Bess suggested to him that the big house would be empty now that her husband was gone. Penny insists she loves the big house, and when Cadence is called upon to support her mother’s claim, she knows she is supposed to inflate her grandfather’s ego with praise and gratitude. However, Cadence says, “It’s too big for us.” After supper, Cadence’s mother reprimands her for not backing her up. Cadence says Bess has more children and could use the space. Penny insists the place is hers, even if it has five bedrooms. Cadence accuses her of not doing anything good with her money and privilege. Her mother threatens to send Cadence to live with her father if she doesn’t talk to granddad about Windemere. Afraid of losing Gat, Cadence does as her mother asks. Granddad promises he wouldn’t take the house away from Penny and calls Bess a “grasping wench.” However, Mirren tells Cadence he promised the house to Bess, saying he needed “a little time to get Penny out.”
At the tennis courts that night, Gat tells Cadence about her grandfather’s racist prejudice against him and his uncle, Ed. Even though Granddad is a Democrat who voted for Obama, he never calls Gat by name, and clearly doesn’t approve of Ed, an Indian man, being with his white daughter. Gat says that recently Ed proposed to her, after they had lived together for nine years, and she turned him down because she didn’t want to risk losing her inheritance. She asks Gat why he never said anything to her before. Gat admits he loves coming to the island and didn’t want to concede that it was anything but perfect. He didn’t want to ruin it. Cadence kisses him and they go down to the beach, getting half-naked together on a flat rock on the shore.
Another night that summer, Gat and Cadence are raiding the Clairmont pantry for chocolate when Carrie, Bess, and Penny begin shouting in the house. They are drunk and arguing about who takes care of their father more, and who took care of their mother. They are fighting over who deserves a greater share of the inheritance. Bess tells Carrie that she knows what she is doing by choosing to be with Ed and by bringing Gat every summer, even though “he’s not one of us.” Carrie hits Bess across the mouth. Doors slam. Gat and Cadence hold hands on the floor of the pantry, trying not to be noticed by Carrie, who loads wine glasses into the dishwasher.
In the following days, Granddad threatens to drain Johnny’s college fund if he doesn’t interfere in his mother’s love life. Johnny refuses, saying he’ll work his way through community college. Carrie asks Gat to stop coming to dinners because his presence riles up her father. All the Liars stop attending meals. Bess tries to make her four children petition their grandfather, convincing him they are Sinclairs through and through, and that they are the future of the family. They refuse to cooperate. Cadence’s mother asks her to cut things off with Gat and to make sure Granddad knows it was nothing more than a simple infatuation. Cadence refuses, saying she loves Gat.
The Liars discuss the possibility of God reaching his finger down from Heaven and striking the Clairmont house with lightning. Their family would repent for their greed and pettiness. They would be a family and stay a family. The Liars think of it as both punishment and “purification through flames.” At lunch the next day, the Liars hear voices so loud they come up to watch. In response to complaints that they have to work for his love every day, Granddad scolds his daughters for disrespecting the traditions of the family by getting divorced and disappointing him. He says they can’t expect him to reward them with financial security after they have disregarded the values of the family. The aunts either cry or storm off. Cadence’s mother smashes her wineglass against the Clairmont house.
Analysis
Cadence’s journey toward recovering her lost memories of summer fifteen continues with a kayak trip off the shores of Beechwood. The action of jumping into the water draws up fragmented memories of when she was unconscious in the ocean, but Cadence finds she is not so distracted by her trauma that she can’t swim calmly to shore.
However, the experience of swimming makes more come back to Cadence, such as the image of Carrie grieving over her son, Johnny. Cadence realizes that her “accident” must have been something more traumatic than she thought. But when she brings her theory to Mirren, Mirren is reluctant to illuminate her. Like everyone else, Mirren allows Cadence to reach the upsetting conclusion on her own.
Part 4 begins with Cadence finally remembering that she and the Liars burned down Clairmont. With this information, she goes to Johnny to learn more. As if the knowledge of the fire is a key she needs to get anyone to talk to her about what happened, Johnny fills her in on how the aunts’ fights over their inheritance led the Liars to set the fire.
Cadence also recalls how Harris made the situation worse by manipulating his daughters into competing for his love, which led them to involve the younger generation in the charade. Although Cadence usually obeys her mother when instructed to repress her emotions and present a false self to others, Cadence refuses to play the same game and concedes that Windemere is too large for just her and her mother, and Bess with her five children should have it. When Cadence’s mother manipulates Cadence with the threat of separating her from Gat, Cadence goes to her grandfather to undo what she said. His manipulativeness is on display as he reassures her he would never take Windemere away, while simultaneously promising to Bess that he will get Penny out of the house.
Cadence’s rosy image of her grandfather is compromised even further when Gat explains to her that Harris’s racist prejudice against Ed is standing in the way of Carrie and Ed getting married. Gat too has been made to feel unwelcome by Harris, who Gat believes may not be entirely cognizant of his own racism. Ultimately, the new image of her grandfather as far more flawed than she wants to believe will lead Cadence down a tragic path.
The air of tension grows more unbearable as conflicts continue to arise around the Liars’ participation in their mothers’ feud. Penny even tries to convince Cadence to break things off with Gat to appease Harris. The tension builds until Harris scolds his daughters publicly for disappointing him with their failed marriages and lack of work ethic. In an action that foreshadows the fire, Penny reacts to her father’s attempt to humiliate her by smashing a wineglass against his house.
