One Day in December

The year 2013 is proving to be one of many life changes for Laurie and Jack. Laurie plunges into wedding planning, maintaining a respectful distance from Oscar’s mother’s opinions. Laurie wants her wedding to be intimate, but she allows Oscar’s mother to make most of the decisions, eager to please and eager to be wed. Laurie sarcastically notes that she is to be married in the same church Oscar’s parents were married in and how poorly that marriage turned out. That sarcasm, another glimpse of foreshadowing for the reader, is mostly ignored in the pleasure of other wedding planning events, such as bridal dress shopping.

The bridal gown is itself a symbol of the transition from one part of Laurie’s life to the next, as Oscar’s wife. It is a moment her family, friends, and the saleswoman expect to be magical, mesmerizing, yet also sobering in its seriousness. Silver foreshadows later events once again when Laurie is disturbed by the image herself in a bridal gown in the mirror, picturing Jack instead of Oscar. Laurie understands the symbolism behind the bridal gown, but she cannot control the way her mind still leaps to Jack O’Mara.

The symbolism of the bridal gown is also representative of Laurie’s characterization. Laurie’s mother pictures her in a huge, fancy wedding dress, but Laurie prefers the simple dress she finds in a vintage shop. The bridal gown, as a symbolic expression of who Laurie is, is one of her ways to establish her independence, a way of holding on to the values that are truly important to her. The discovery of the dress she falls in loves with is even more symbolically important because she tries it on with Jack. Jack is the first person to see her in her wedding dress, an almost poetic moment for the two.

In the initial chapters of this section, the reader learns that Laurie will marry Oscar around the holiday season, in December. This is a fitting date, a motif of the stress and joy that comes with the holiday season, a motif that has followed Laurie’s major character developments as the novel has unfolded. Yet again, her Christmas will be busy, but the reader knows that Laurie’s winter holidays are characteristically filled with stress and heartbreak. Around the Christmas date is when she first spotted Jack as the mysterious bus boy, when she discovered Jack’s relationship with Sarah, when she gave up on her own happiness with Jack, and when she brought Oscar back to integrate into her life in England. This cycle of Christmastime events creates a tone of tension for Laurie’s wedding to Oscar.

In many ways, Laurie and Jack have been parallel characters since they first spotted each other at the bus stop. In April, their parallelism continues. Laurie is making a major change in her life: She is getting married and leaving an old name and a former identity behind her. Jack is moving to Scotland to pursue his own new start, thereby cementing their separation out of the triangle that informed their friendship for so many years. The parallel journey of leaving home is also notable here: Sarah went to Thailand to discover a new sense of self, and now Jack is doing the same in Scotland. The characters must leave home and familiar friends to get out of their habits and start anew.

Two major shifts in Laurie’s life occur in these months. First, she loses her deep friendship with Sarah when Sarah finally guesses that Jack is the mysterious bus stop man. The conflict of truth is a reoccurring theme in this novel, and Laurie finds it difficult to explain why she did not tell Sarah the truth at the very beginning. Their argument is filled with symbolism: Sarah rejects the bracelet Laurie shared with Ginny and tried to share with Sarah, Sarah calls their friendship fake, and Sarah declares her pity for Oscar, who is Laurie’s “second best.” Sarah is righteous in her anger and her shock, but Laurie is left unable to explain how one can hide deep secrets from a friend while still maintaining a true friendship. Laurie is heartbroken over the fight but wonders if this is part of the process of getting older and meeting new people. If Sarah is her last tie to her early twenties, then losing Sarah’s friendship and marrying Oscar is a concrete way of ending one part of her life and starting another. This reflection emphasizes the theme of coming-of-age, but the truth is Laurie has not figured out what will happen with Sarah.

Secondly, Laurie gets married. Although she is heartbroken by the loss of Sarah, the wedding is happy and beautiful. She sees Jack as she walks down the aisle, but seeing him doesn’t detract from the moment of joy when she is declared Oscar’s wife. Laurie’s ability to balance these two emotions highlights the idea that Laurie’s wedding is the end of one era, the start of another. This idea echoes a thought Jack had in previous chapters when he noted that Laurie was becoming more like Oscar and less like himself and Sarah. We’re invited to wonder if Laurie is growing up, or if she allowing her life to change so she can avoid some of the harder truths about her real feelings.

Jack gives the toast to Laurie instead of Sarah, a fitting way to remind Laurie of their triangular relationship. Whenever Sarah was not around to help Laurie, Jack was. When Sarah needed help with Jack, she called upon Laurie. When Jack needed to check in on Sarah, he reached out to Laurie. If the wedding is meant to be Laurie’s transition into a new life, then it is suitable that one side of her triangle would be replaced by the other in a time of need.