I’ll Give You the Sun: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

The next morning, Jude arrives at Day Street with her sketchbook and presents Guillermo with the studies of her mother. As Guillermo flips through the drawings, he tenderly traces them with his fingers. He asks Jude if Dianna was her mother, and Jude admits that she was. Guillermo closes Jude’s sketchbook and says that he can’t help her after all. He says that it’s been distracting having her in the studio, and urges her to leave immediately. Jude is confused—and is even more confused when both Oscar and Noah burst into the studio. As the four of them look at one another with fear, Jude begs someone to tell her what’s going on.

Noah points at Guillermo and states that he killed Dianna. Oscar protests, asserting that no man has ever loved a woman as deeply as Guillermo loved Dianna. Jude is disoriented as she absorbs the information, and realizes it wasn’t her age that freaked Oscar out the night before—it was the photograph of Dianna. She also realizes that the first time she ever saw Guillermo—the day she came to his studio to find him in a drunken rage—was the anniversary of her mother’s death. Dianna, she realizes, is Dearest.

Jude asks Noah to explain—Noah tearfully confesses that Dianna was on her way to ask Dad for a divorce when she died, and that Dianna was planning on marrying Guillermo. As Jude looks at Guillermo, she can sense joy seeping out of him, and realizes that her mother is the female figure in so many of Guillermo’s works—Dianna and Guillermo were split-aparts themselves. It is all too much for Jude, and she staggers out of the studio and into the street.

Jude at last understands why her father has been so preoccupied all these years, and why Noah’s grief after Dianna’s death was so intense. She is angry with Noah—but also realizes that he was just trying to protect what was left of their family. Jude hears footsteps behind her, and realizes Noah is following her. He begins explaining that for years he has felt intense guilt, and has believed that he himself was actually responsible for Dianna’s death—his witnessing her affair brought her to a decision point, and if it hadn’t been for Noah’s meddling, she might not have been in the car that day. Noah also confesses that he told Dianna he hated her just before he left, and then breaks down in tears. Jude allows herself to surrender to her grief as well, and she and Noah hold one another in the street as they weep.

As Jude and Noah make their way home through the woods, Jude realizes that Grandma’s last aphorism from the bible—“A broken heart is an open heart”—was right after all. Noah and Jude talk more than they have in years, and Noah confesses to Jude that he and Brian were in love, and that Dianna caught them together. Noah regrets ruining Brian’s life—but Jude tells him what she’s found on the internet about Brian’s successful baseball career.

Jude admits that she has something to tell Noah, too, and at last comes clean about destroying his application. Rather than being angry, though, Noah is ecstatic—all along, he thought that he was rejected based on the subpar nature of his art. Over the years, though, he tells Jude, he has come to realize that other people’s approval didn’t matter. He joyfully tells Jude he has something to show her, and leads her through the woods towards an abandoned construction site.

At the site, there is a mural painted on a cement crumbling wall—there are images of her and Noah, of Brian, of Mom and Guillermo at the Wooden Bird, of Dad, of Heather, and Guillermo’s stone giants. Noah has been remaking the world all along. Jude takes out her phone and begins snapping pictures, telling Noah that he’ll for sure get into CSA now—she reveals she’s planning on giving up her spot for him. Noah tells her, though, that he doesn’t want to go to CSA—he would rather make art for himself, on his own terms. He doesn’t want to study art—he wants to revel in its magic.

Noah promises Jude he isn’t mad at her, and the two of them, ecstatic to at least have the truth all out in the open, rush home through the woods. As they skip through the forest, they play rock-paper-scissors, and are thrilled to realize that they can really play now—unlike in their younger days, they pick different symbols each time. Pausing in a clearing to sit down, Noah reflects on how his desire to impress Dianna hurt his relationship with Jude. Jude asks Noah if Heather knows that he’s gay, and he says that she does. Jude remarks upon how normal Noah has gotten—and how weird she herself has become. She wonders aloud if perhaps that’s just what being alive is—“accumulating these new selves all the time.”

As Jude thinks about her mother, she finds herself torn between two thoughts: she is thrilled that her mother was able to find true happiness with Guillermo, but miserable and angry that her happiness was Dad’s unhappiness. At the same time, Jude wonders if that’s what love is: whether it “does as it undoes.” Jude tells Noah that they have to get home—and that he has to tell Dad the truth. They run home and, as they emerge together out of the woods, see Benjamin in the yard. He is thrilled to see the two of them running and playing together—but when he sees the look on Noah’s face, he asks what Noah needs to tell him.

Later that evening, Noah and Dad make dinner. Noah and Jude have made an agreement—she is going to stop relying so much on Grandma’s bible, and he is going to stop cliff-diving. Jude plans on making paper flying women out of pieces of Grandma’s bible, and wants to call the piece “The History of Luck.”

Jude reveals that after Noah told Dad the truth, Dad received the news calmly. He seemed almost grateful for things to at last, after so many years, make sense. Now, Dad tells the kids he has an idea—he wants for them to move to a houseboat. He feels the three of them need an adventure together as a family. Noah points out the corniness—and the beauty—of the three of them all living together on an “ark.” Benjamin has found a houseboat for sale, and its name is The Mystery—when she was alive, Dianna was always telling Benjamin to “Embrace the mystery,” and now he wants to.

Jude asks to help cook, and she begins slicing a pepper when there is a knock at the door—and Oscar walks in. As Jude jumps nearly out of her skin, she is reminded of the time Brian walked into the kitchen and spooked—and excited—Noah all those years ago. Jude introduces Oscar to Benjamin using his full name, Oscar Ralph, and then Oscar asks if he can talk to Jude alone. Dad and Noah dissolve into laughter—they point out that Jude has, at last, finally found Ralph.

Jude follows Oscar out to the backyard, where they sit down together. He begins telling Jude that he knew Dianna well—she was around when Oscar was at his worst, and saw him in some unflattering lights. Nevertheless, she was always kind to him— moreover, Dianna aspired to paint, and often used Oscar as a model. Oscar and Dianna used to sit together in the church near Guillermo’s and talk—she would go “on and on about her twins.” Oscar tells Jude that he knows so much about her—and is trying to reconcile the Jude Dianna described with the “CJ” Oscar has grown to know over the last couple weeks.

Oscar reveals that Dianna always thought Oscar and Jude were kindred spirits—but that she wouldn’t allow them to meet until Oscar had been sober for three years and Jude was at least twenty-five years old. What Oscar is trying to say to Jude, he admits, is that he doesn’t believe it’s “their time” yet—he worries that he is too old for her, and too close to the traumas of his past.

Oscar tells Jude that he wants to be great friends with her, and promises to wait for her until she’s of legal age—and sure that she wants to be with him. Jude is miserable—she begs Oscar not to turn his back on what “might be the love story of [their] lives” and “denying all the forces that have conspired to bring [them] together.” As Jude says these words, she feels both her mother and grandmother’s spirits inside of her. Oscar surrenders and kisses Jude, admitting that he’s crazy about her and agreeing that they shouldn’t waste any more time. As the two embrace, Jude’s neighbor parrot squawks again: “Where the hell is Ralph?”

The next day, Jude and Noah approach Guillermo’s studio. Jude reflects on her feelings about Guillermo—she has gone back and forth the last couple days between hating him entirely and wondering what it would have been like to have him as a stepfather. Jude is still confused about her feelings, but decides that “maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”

As Jude and Noah walk into the warehouse, Jude is shocked by how clean everything is—as they stand together in front of the painting on the wall of Guillermo and Dianna entwined in an embrace, Guillermo emerges from the next room and tells them that Dianna herself painted it. Noah wonders aloud why Dianna never shared her aspirations with him or Jude, and Guillermo says that she was scared—just like Jude was scared to show anyone her sand women. Guillermo reveals that it was he who sent Jude’s pictures to CSA—Dianna had planned on doing it once she found the photos on Noah’s camera, but he beat her to it.

As Jude looks around the studio, she realizes that all of the coincidences and collisions have perhaps not been so random—Dianna wanted Guillermo in her children’s lives and them in his, knowing that they are, “each one of [them is] for the other, a key to a door that otherwise would’ve remained locked forever.”

Guillermo sets Noah up with canvases and paint, and then goes to check on Jude, who is working in the yard. Guillermo tells Jude that while Noah looks more like Dianna, Jude is Dianna—neither woman was ever afraid of him. Guillermo tells Jude that though he’d like to keep working with her, he understands if she doesn’t want to anymore. Jude admits, though, that being around Guillermo has made her feel better about things. Guillermo speculates that maybe Dianna’s ghost kept breaking Jude’s clay so that she’d come find a stone carver. Jude wonders who—or what—pulls the strings of destiny.

Two weeks later, Jude and Benjamin arrive back at the house after a swim in the ocean. As Jude looks across the street at the woods, she sees Brian and Noah emerging from the forest hand in hand—last week, Noah finally got a response to his LostConnections post. As Benjamin and Jude smile at Noah and Brian, a ladybug lands on Jude’s hand, and she makes a wish.