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Part 2-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Purgatorio” - Part 3: “Paradiso”
Part 2, Chapter 37 Summary: “Fiona”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual violence and harassment, mental illness, pregnancy loss, graphic violence, sexual content, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Fiona notes how hard it is to tell the truth from the perspective of a ghost since they are essentially narrating a story to themselves. Sandy Wainwright comes downstairs, and Claire tells her to take her son, Bennett. Kayla has disappeared, and Sandy and David are waiting upstairs for Fiona and Claire to tell them if the spirit of Kayla Reece has left the house.
Part 2, Chapter 38 Summary: “Aidan”
Aidan fell in love with Kayla as soon as he met her when she was technically separated from Michael. Michael is a professor in mathematics, and Aidan suspected that people told Michael he was a genius so often that Michael felt like he was God. Kayla told Aidan how Michael started abusing her after they were married, including kicking her in the stomach, which caused her to miscarry her pregnancy. Aidan wanted Kayla to get a restraining order, but Kayla planned to deny Michael attention, hoping he would get bored and leave her alone. Aidan does not regret his death, but he does not know that only killing Aidan would not be enough to satiate Michael.
Part 2, Chapter 39 Summary: “Kayla, 4 Months Ago”
Kayla realizes that she kept her wedding ring on to honor her dead marriage and the child she never had. She gathers her ring, her wedding certificate, and other mementos to bury in a shoe box in her yard and then she goes to Aidan’s apartment. He welcomes her in, and she thanks him for giving her space. They collapse on the bed, but Aidan’s book, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, pokes Kayla in the back. She asks him what the book is about, and he summarizes the epic poem as Dante’s journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. Kayla pokes fun at Aidan for reading something so serious, and Aidan adds that his name is an anagram for Alighieri’s name. Aidan recites the last lines of the poem, which are the same as in the letter to Kayla. Kayla asks what Aidan thinks heaven is like, and he says “You.” They share a kiss and think about how in love they are. From then on, they spend months together, until everything ends on New Year’s Eve.
Part 2, Chapter 40 Summary: “Kayla, New Year’s Eve”
Kayla and Aidan have sex, and they say how much they love each other. Aidan suggests going out on the Eurydice to have sex under the Fourth of July fireworks. Kayla agrees, and they gather a picnic basket to bring with them. They go out to the boat, and Kayla ascends, while Aidan goes to untie the moorings. Kayla calls for Aidan, but he does not respond. Kayla finds Aidan standing across from Michael. Michael is wearing a hat and trench coat, which Kayla has seen him wearing as he has been following her for months. Michael has a gun, which he points at Aidan. Aidan tries to calm Michael down, apologizing for convincing Kayla to end their marriage, though Kayla knows she left Michael before meeting Aidan. Aidan tells Kayla to get off the boat, but Michael stops her, saying he needs to kill them both. Michael gives them the chance to choose, saying he will only kill one of them if they pick whom he should shoot. Aidan chooses himself and lunges at Michael, but Michael shoots him in the head. Kayla collapses on Aidan’s body, crying, and Michael hits her in the head with the gun. Kayla partially wakes up while Michael is dragging her into the water. Michael strangles Kayla in the water, and she can hear him laughing. His buffalo nickel falls in the water beside her, and Kayla dies thinking about how much she loves Aidan.
Part 3, Chapter 41 Summary: “Kayla”
Kayla understands how she lived a dual life after her death, reliving her memories and wallowing in her unresolved grief. Fiona continued to work for the Wainwrights, which allowed her to help Kayla move on. Having realized her death, Kayla is ready to set aside her story.
When Kayla opens her eyes, she sees the house as it is, with pictures of the Wainwrights and little changes she could not see before. The storm ends, and Kayla can see sunlight and hear birds chirping. The doorbell rings, and Kayla finds Aidan on the other side. They embrace, and Aidan explains how he meant everything in his letters. He was the one making the doorbell ring all along, though many of the markers of ghost activity throughout the novel were Kayla’s anger manifesting. Kayla asks why Aidan sent the letters from “prison,” and he says Michael is being held there. Kayla laughs, remembering that Claire and Fiona said some geniuses can see ghosts. Kayla relishes Aidan’s kiss and their upcoming revenge.
Epilogue Summary
The Epilogue is a transcript from Dr. Patrick Templeman’s session with Michael Reece, as Michael awaits trial for killing Aidan and Kayla. Templeman notes Michael’s agitation, and Michael criticizes Templeman’s education, boasting about his own degrees and refusing to cooperate. Templeman notes Michael’s violent outbursts against guards, and Michael criticizes his attorney’s incompetence, claiming that he killed Kayla and Aidan in self-defense. Michael is confident he will not be convicted because he is not a “rapist” or “drug dealer” but a respected member of the community. Templeman notes that Michael displays traits consistent with narcissistic personality disorder. Templeman says the evidence against Michael shows his pattern of abusing Kayla, including the fact that he stalked Kayla for months after they separated and that Michael was having an affair with a coworker. Michael is facing a life sentence without parole, but he insists he should be set free.
Suddenly, Michael fixates on the wall and starts screaming. He claims Aidan and Kayla are in the room with them, but Templeman says they are alone. Michael ends up curled in the corner screaming, yelling for them to stop saying something. Templeman asks what they are saying, and Michael says,“[B]oo.”
Part 2-Epilogue Analysis
The final parts of the novel, Purgatorio and Paradiso, are considerably shorter than Inferno, which takes up the bulk of the novel. Additionally, both parts deviate from the narrative structure and pacing of Inferno, offering additional perspectives from other characters, deviations in the timeline of the novel, and the use of a transcript-style conclusion. Each of these devices creates a montage effect, in which the author details and explains the overarching plot and the events of the novel with all its foreshadowing, symbolism, and motifs coming into place. Fiona opens Purgatorio by saying, “But the thing about ghosts is that they’re unreliable narrators. Especially when they’re telling a story to themselves” (317). This admission reflects Kayla’s narration of all of Inferno, highlighting how details previously presented as factual are figments of Kayla’s imagination in the afterlife.
The conclusion of The Impact of Unresolved Grief and Guilt comes in the realization that Kayla has effectively trapped herself in her home. In doing so, she is doomed to relive the final months of her life, during which she was enjoying her time with Aidan but feared retribution from Michael. Fittingly, it is Aidan who reveals the extent of Michael’s abuses, noting how “Michael and Kayla were married young. Before the outbursts started. Before he kicked her so hard in the stomach, she miscarried their child” (319). Aidan is more willing to approach these details out of anger, sustaining the desire for revenge that Kayla hid from herself. Where Aidan resigns himself to waiting for Kayla in the afterlife, Kayla struggles to confront her abusive marriage, clinging instead to the memories she has of Aidan’s love. The conclusion of Kayla’s grief comes in her acknowledgment of her illusion, saying, “I’ve been honoring the dead. My dead child. My dead marriage. My dead hopes for the life I once thought I’d have” (323). Geissinger complicates this perspective by the fear she felt in her final moments and even after her death. In burying the ring, marriage license, and sonogram, Kayla releases her fear rather than her obligation to honor her past.
Paradiso offers the culmination of the novel’s exploration of The Transcendence of Love Beyond the Physical Realm, as Aidan and Kayla are reunited in the afterlife. Kayla awakes, recognizing the house as the Wainwrights, and she joins Aidan, who is patiently waiting for her outside. Kayla’s first words to Aidan are “[y]ou found me,” but Aidan replies, “I never lost you. Who do you think has been ringing the doorbell this whole time?” (349). The suggestion that Aidan has been waiting outside Kayla’s door, just as he is when she finds him, means that Aidan continues to support and love Kayla through her tribulations. Their love continues just as it was when they were alive, allowing them to fulfill part of their supernatural connection to one another. The other element of their ghostly obligations is revenge, and they achieve that goal humorously by chanting “boo” at Michael in prison.
The epilogue also focuses on detailing Michael’s true personality, without the clouds of grief, guilt, and memory through which Kayla understood him in Inferno. Instead, the author describes Michael objectively, through Dr. Templeman’s transcripts. Michael appears arrogant, and the doctor concludes that Michael has characteristics in alignment with narcissistic personality disorder. This confirms Aidan’s suspicions throughout the text. Michael’s irritation and rudeness complicate The Contrast Between Sexual and Romantic Equity, showing how he could never have been a reasonable and loving partner to Kayla. Even his assertion—“I can’t be held responsible for that. It was self-defense. I’m the victim here, okay? Me!” (353)—exposes how, even after murdering Kayla and Aidan, Michael lacks the empathy and understanding to see how his crime was wrong. He believes his overt violence toward and abuse of Kayla, such as kicking her so that she would lose her pregnancy, were necessary or Kayla’s fault. His emotional and physical abuse further asserts his dangerous, cruel characterization and how he functions as a foil to Aidan, who is patient and understanding.
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