Short Answer
You are probably asking three things. What did Percy do to Sam? What is Percy’s secret? And who does she end up with? Here is the short version. Percy slept with Sam’s brother, Charlie, the summer before Sam asked her to marry him. She turned Sam down, and they stopped speaking for twelve years. She ends up with Sam. This is a full spoiler video for Carley Fortune’s novel, so if you have not finished, stop here.
The Setup
The story runs on two clocks. In the present, Percy Fraser is thirty, a senior editor at a design magazine called Shelter in Toronto. Late one night her phone rings, and it is Charlie Florek. His mother, Sue, has died of cancer, and the funeral is on Sunday.
The other clock is a series of flashbacks to the summers at the cottage on Kamaniskeg Lake, next door to the Florek family in Barry’s Bay. I am keeping those young years brief here, because the ending is about the adults they became. What matters is that Sam was her best friend, Sue was close to a second mother, and Percy has spent twelve years not talking about it.
She drives north the next day and books a motel room. Then she finds Sam in the kitchen of the Tavern, the family restaurant, getting it ready for Sue’s wake.
Taylor
Sam is a cardiologist now, and he has been living in Barry’s Bay for a year to look after his mother. Percy is drunk on whisky and relief when his girlfriend, Taylor, walks in. Taylor is a prosecutor from Kingston, and she introduces herself as Sam’s girlfriend in the first minute.
Here is a detail I like. Sam tells Percy the next night that he ended things with Taylor after dropping her off. So the ending is not built on cheating. Percy is not breaking up a happy couple. Sam says the relationship had already stopped working, and the book shows him choosing that before he knows what Percy will tell him.
The Day of the Funeral
The morning of the funeral, Percy and Sam end up kissing in his truck outside the motel. Sam cries about his mother, and about the fear that he will die young like his father. It is tender, and it is also the mistake Percy keeps replaying, because she has not told him the truth yet.
At the church, Taylor is back at his side, and Percy overhears Sam talking with his friends Jordie and Finn. They remind him how bad he was last time. Percy hears only part of it, has a panic attack in the Tavern kitchen, and Sam talks her through it by counting breaths.
That night she calls her best friend, Chantal, and finally tells her everything. Chantal says what Percy needs to hear, that she has never really moved on.
The Secret
Later that evening, in Sam’s old bedroom, Percy stops things and says they need to talk. Twelve years ago, she says, you asked me to marry you, and I pushed you away. Then she says the sentence the book has been holding back for most of its length: I slept with Charlie.
Here is what happened, in her flashbacks. It was the summer after high school. Sam had left early for a premed workshop in Kingston, and he sent one short, distant email asking for space. Percy was eighteen, hurt, and spending every morning swimming with Charlie, who was kind to her when his brother was not. After a drive-in movie, she and Charlie ended up together. The next morning she woke up, realised it was the wrong brother, and had a panic attack.
At Thanksgiving, Sam came home and proposed with his grandmother’s ring. Percy could not say yes with the secret between them, and she could not say the secret out loud either. So she told him she wanted a break. They never spoke again.
What Sam Already Knew
This is the twist in the middle of the ending. Sam goes cold and asks how it was, then shouts that she slept with his brother. And then he says, you left and never came back.
Percy realises he has known all along. Charlie told Sam over Christmas break that year. So for twelve years, she thought she was hiding a secret from him, while he thought she had vanished with it. She wrote to him, and he did not write back. He thought she had moved on, and she thought he hated her.
That is what the title is doing for me. Every summer after, each of them was waiting at the same lake for the other, and each assumed the other was gone.
Charlie’s Part
Percy runs out, and her car is gone, because Charlie took it. She collapses on the road and has a second panic attack. Sam finds her, counts her breaths again, and she faints.
The next morning she wakes in Sam’s old bed, and Charlie is in the kitchen. He admits he had his own feelings, but never meant to make a move until that night. And he tells her that Sue was mostly angry with him, and that before she died, Sue told him to call Percy, because Sam would need her.
So the phone call that starts the book was Sue’s last request, passed on by her son.
The Dock
At dawn Percy finds Sam sitting on the end of the dock. This is the real ending scene, and it is mostly an apology in both directions.
Sam says he was jealous of Charlie, and scared of failing at school, and too proud to call. He tells Percy about the year he spent drinking and sleeping around, and about the night he made a pass at Delilah, which Percy had heard about. Percy says she deserved all of it. Sam’s answer is the line the book’s discussion guide quotes: betrayals do not cancel each other out, they just hurt more.
He says he forgave her years ago, and Percy says she never moved on. Then he ties the old friendship bracelet back around her wrist, the consolation prize he promised if she swam across the lake. They decide to keep each other, and to be better at cleaning up the mess next time.
The Epilogue
The epilogue jumps one year ahead. They spread Sue’s ashes from the Banana Boat, the old boat, with Charlie driving. Sam and Percy live together in Toronto, and Percy is writing again.
Julien, the Tavern’s chef, has bought the restaurant. Percy has made peace with Delilah, who asked what took her so long. And that night, Percy plans to propose to Sam herself, with a ring made from twisted embroidery floss to match their bracelets. Her question is not marry me. It is to be her family, forever.
So who does Percy end up with? Sam, in the book. She does not end up with Charlie, and the story treats Charlie as family, not a rival.
My Verdict
This is my opinion, and it is a draft for the owner to review. I think the ending works because the secret is not the biggest reveal. The reveal is that Sam knew, which turns a story about hiding into a story about two people talking past each other.
My gripe is that the grand gesture arrives quickly after a very painful scene. Still, it is a warm, forgiving ending, and it never pretends the betrayal did not hurt.
Tell me in the comments: could you forgive Percy? Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.
