We Were Liars: Part 3: Summer Seventeen Summary & Analysis

As Cady arrives on Beechwood, she sees that Clairmont, the main house on the island, has been completely rebuilt. In the place of the old Victorian with a turret and wrap-around porch, there is a cold, modern building made of glass and iron with a Japanese garden on the side. Harris spent two summers building the house, which they call “New Clairmont.” Cady is struck by a deep sense of sadness for the old house and the old maple tree with the swing they all had used for years.

Penny sees that Cady is upset, and commands her to be normal and not to cause a scene for the rest of the family. Cady looks toward the shore from the boat and sees her friends, Mirren, Johnny, and Gat, waiting for her, welcoming her home. When Penny and Cady finally get into Windemere, their house on the island, Harris and Bess are waiting for them. Harris welcomes Cady back to the island, but he calls her Mirren. Cady’s younger cousins ask about her hair, which she dyed black during the school year, and one of them tells Cady she looks like a vampire. Everyone reminds the girl that she needs to be nice to Cady, but Cady responds that it’s okay, because she doesn’t care what anyone thinks anymore.

Once the rest of the family leaves, Cady goes out to find the Liars, and they greet her lovingly. Cady is happy to see Gat, but feels upset at the same time, because while Cady has been spending the past two years alone and in pain, she knows that Gat has been in New York City, dating beautiful and sophisticated girls. The Liars comment on her hair, and on how much taller she is now; they ask her about where she plans on going to college, and she has to tell them that she didn’t graduate. Mirren tells Cady about her new boyfriend, Drake Loggerhead, who will also be at Pomona in the fall. They have had sex already, and Mirren and Cady make plans to talk about the details when the boys aren’t around. The Liars tell Cady that they will not be having their meals at New Clairmont this summer with the rest of the family.

They go out to the beach, and Mirren and Johnny go into the water, leaving Cady and Gat alone to talk. They flirt casually for a while, and then finally Gat tells her that he worried he might never see her again. Cady asks him why he never writes back to her, but he doesn’t answer her, just noting that he is glad she is back on the island. Cady is upset with him and thinks he’s a jerk for deserting her, but she is still in love with him. So when he asks to hold hands, she wavers for a moment but then agrees, and they lie on the beach holding hands.

Later, Cady stands in her room, looking around at her belongings and trying to spark some memories from two summers earlier. She looks at the patchwork quilt, the artwork on the walls, and the books she used to read, and then begins to pull the books off the shelves to get rid of them. Her mother comes in and asks her not to give away her books, commenting that they have so many good memories attached to them. Penny reminds her of how she read The Lives of Christopher Chant to Cady and Gat when they are eight years old, and that she might want to hold on to that one. Annoyed, Cady reminds her mother that when her father left, Penny got rid of all of his things, leaving no trace of him in the house at all.

They are about to argue but are interrupted by the three golden retrievers bounding up the stairs. Penny, who is dressed and wearing fresh makeup for dinner, informs Cady that she has the right to give away all of her books, and she can do what she wants with her time on the island, but that she is expected—no excuses—for dinner at Clairmont with a smile on her face for her grandfather, Harris. Cady ignores her mother and decides to write down all her memories from summer fifteen, and then makes a special list for her memories of the accident. She then tacks up the lists, along with another list of questions she hopes to answer.

There is a witch behind Cady, and suddenly she swings an ivory statue of a goose right at Cady’s forehead, smashing her skull. The witch keeps attacking her until Cady decides to take some pain pills and turn off the light. Penny calls from the hallway, reminding Cady that it is time to go to Clairmont for family dinner, but Cady refuses. Penny lists all the reasons why Cady should go with her to dinner, but Cady can only sink deeper into the migraine. Finally, Penny leaves Cady alone in the dark.

Cady wakes in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, so she slips outside. Her aunt Carrie is wandering along the path between the houses, only wearing her nightgown and shearling boots. Carrie says that she has trouble sleeping when Ed isn’t there and asks if Cady has seen Johnny recently. She then tells Cady that her younger son, Will, has been having nightmares and wakes up screaming on a regular basis. He thinks the houses are all haunted.

In the morning, Cady goes to Clairmont and has breakfast with her mother and grandfather. She asks where Fatima and Prince Phillip—two of the golden retrievers—have gone, and Harris tells her that they died a while back. Sad, Cady asks if the dogs suffered, and he tells her that they did not, not for long. He then tells Cady that he doesn’t like her new hair color, and that he prefers her as a blond Sinclair girl. Harris tells Penny that she should make Mirren change her hair back to the way it is, again confusing Cady for her cousin.

Cady is spending the morning with Mirren, and finally decides to ask her why she never wrote back to her when Cady was in Europe the previous summer. Mirren responds that she hates email, and then attempts to change the subject. Cady asks her if she received the Barbie doll she mailed to her, and Mirren says no. Mirren asks Cady about her migraines, saying that the aunts have been talking about them, and Cady asks Mirren not to feel sorry for her. Mirren tells Cady that Johnny and Gat are staying at Cuddledown, another house on the island, and asks Cady to come so that they can all stay together. Cady responds that her mom will not let her.

Throughout her conversation with Mirren, Cady wants to tell her that she has no memories of the accident and beg her to explain what happened. She also wants to tell Mirren that she’s upset about the emails and the Barbie, though she assumes the lost Barbie isn’t Mirren’s fault. But Mirren offers her the handfuls of purple rocks she has collected along the shore, reminding Cady of how much she loved those purple rocks when she is little. Cady doesn’t want to take anything she doesn’t need, but finally she accepts the rocks, and Mirren gives them to her and yells, “I love my cousin Cadence Sinclair Eastman!”

Johnny interrupts their conversation and asks Cady about the laundry basket of belongings at her feet. She tells him that she is giving away her possessions and reminds him that she sent him a scarf over the winter. She goes on to talk about her disdain for materialism and her new enthusiasm for charity. Johnny seems confused, asking Cady why she doesn’t want to own things. He says that he wants things all the time, like a car, video games, watches, real art for his walls, and wooly clothing. Mirren chimes in that she would want to keep sentimental items, and Johnny calls her a “mushball.”

Later that day, Gat finds Cady and brings her to the beach. He pulls her to him and hugs her, telling her that everyone else has had the chance to hug her but him. He then asks if she remembers the last time they are on the beach alone, which she doesn’t. She is frustrated by her faulty memory and the fact that she is still in love with him and wants to forgive him for his silence. But she is not ready to forgive him, because she doesn’t know what he did to her the night of the accident. So Cady tells him that the memory must have slipped her mind, and that it must not have been that important to him in the long run, either. Gat asks if she is angry, and she says yes, of course she is angry at being deserted.

Gat asks Cady if they can start over, and that his actions are “suboptimal.” Cady is bothered by his use of the word “suboptimal,” and tells him that the words he should use are “thoughtless and confusing and manipulative.” He begs her to let him start over, and they agree to do just that, right after lunch. Cady has lunch at Clairmont and gets a tour of the renovated house. She thinks the house feels too “sharp” and empty—it is missing the floor-to-ceiling books, family photographs, and paintings of the golden retrievers. At least the younger cousins’ rooms are personalized now, with toys and magazines strewn all over the floor, and Bonnie’s books on ghosts, angels, and psychics piled in a corner. When Cady mentions all the missing items, Harris tells her that their old life is gone, and he has started over.

Harris asks Cady where “the young man” is, and she thinks he is referring to Johnny, but he means Gat. He looks faint and clutches a nearby desk, and Cady asks him if he is okay. He says that he is okay, and that he had a book he promised to give to Gat. Cady reminds him that there are no books in the house anymore, and he yells at her. Carrie comes in to help, and Cady asks her about the previous night when they saw each other on the path. She asks if Carrie found Johnny, and Carrie responds that she has no idea what Cady is talking about.

The younger cousins ask Cady if she will take them tubing, but Penny tells Cady that she is not allowed to drive the boat. After lunch, Cady goes into the living room with the younger boys, Will and Taft, and tries to ask them about the previous summer. When she asks if they went boating with Johnny and Gat, they stop jumping and simply say no. She continues to ask questions, when Will responds that they are not supposed to talk to her about the accident because it will make her headaches worse. Cady tells them that she just wants to know about the previous summer, when she was in Europe, but the boys tell her they don’t want to talk to her anymore and leave to play Angry Birds.

Cady goes over to Cuddledown and helps the Liars rearrange the furniture. She asks if Bess will be upset that they are redecorating, and Mirren tells Cady that Bess hates the house—she wishes that Harris would remodel it and feels like the least loved daughter because her house has been ignored. When Cady asks if Bess actually asked Harris to remodel the house, Johnny gives her an odd look and asks how she doesn’t remember. Mirren scolds Johnny and reminds him that they are supposed to go easy on Cady for forgetting things. Mirren comments that Johnny is being “feeble.” Cady says that he has just had a “suboptimal” moment; at the word “suboptimal,” Gat touches Cady’s shoulder, and she knows that they have started over.

The Liars play tennis, and on the way back Gat asks Cady how her trip to Europe is. Cady informs them that she spent most of her time vomiting in the bathrooms of tourist sites. Mirren asks how Cady can ask them not to feel sorry for her and then tell a story like that. Gat and Johnny also tell her that they are jealous, because they have never been to Rome; Cady responds that they will go at some point, either in college or afterwards. When Cady is back at the house, her mother asks her if she is playing tennis, and praises her for getting back into an activity she used to love. Penny offers to play with her any time, but Cady is not interested.

Cady suddenly has a recovered memory of a dinner on the Clairmont lawn. She and Gat are sitting next to each other, and Harris began to talk about renovating his house in Boston, and his daughters began arguing about it. They know that Bess wants the Boston house—it is worth $4 million, and the girls grew up in it. Harris asks Bess what she wants him to do with the house, and if she would help him remodel it. Penny, who is drunk at that point, accuses Harris of cutting the other sisters out, and Harris accuses them all of acting crazy. Now, two years later, Cady looks at her mother and aunts as they sit together happily, and she wonders what has changed.

At midnight that night, Cady and the Liars are playing Scrabble and talking about their younger cousins. Cady announces that Taft has a motto, just like their grandfather does, and they all talk about Harris’s various mottos: “don’t take no for an answer,” “no one likes a waffler,” and “never take a seat in the back of the room.” Taft’s motto is “drugs are not your friend,” likely from his drug education class at school. Mirren comments that Bonnie and Liberty are kleptomaniacs now, and that they seem beyond help. The Liars then discuss possible mottos of their own, like “be a little kinder than you have to,” or “never eat anything bigger than your ass.”

Gat claims not to have a motto, then decides that his would be “do not accept an evil you can change,” but Mirren does not like that one because she believes in accepting the world as it is. She and Gat have a sharp discussion about this, until Johnny breaks the ice by announcing that his motto is “never eat yellow snow.” Cady says that her motto is “always do what you are afraid to do,” and she writes it on the backs of her hands. Mirren disagrees with this motto as well, as she notes that it is dangerous, and someone could die for it.

Cady follows Gat out of the room and kisses him, and he kisses her back, only to pull away and tell her that they should not be doing it. He tells Cady that he is a mess, and then claims that she doesn’t know him at all, because she has never met his mom or been to his apartment in New York City. He is a different person on Beechwood, where he is the only non-white person, with the exception of Ginny and Pablo. Cady asks who Ginny and Pablo are, and Gat points out that this is precisely the problem—Ginny and Pablo work on the island but are invisible to Cady. She feels ashamed by this, but tells Gat that she wants to see the world through his eyes, but he claims that she wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Gat continues, telling Cady that to Harris, Gat is like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights: he is the “gypsy boy” in the novel who is taken in by the wealthy Earnshaw family. Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine, the daughter, and although she loves him as well, she and the rest of her family can’t help but see him as beneath them because of his background. Despite his efforts to turn himself into a gentleman, he is always an animal in their eyes; in the end, he becomes what they expect of him. Cady responds that she thinks the novel is a romance, but then realizes that Gat’s point is that Harris sees him as a “brute.” After a moment of silence, he says that it turns out that Harris is right all along.

Cady begins another fairy tale: once there was a king with three beautiful daughters, and when the first granddaughter was born, she was so tiny that her mother kept her in her pocket, and the rest of the family promptly forgot about her. One day, when the tiny princess was older, she wandered into the palace library and met a mouse who loved reading as much as she did. They fell in love, but when the tiny princess introduced the mouse to her family, they could not accept him, because he was an animal trying to pass himself off as a person. The tiny princess left the palace with the mouse and they traveled all over the world and lived happily ever after.

Cady has learned a lot about her family: Harris keeps confusing her with Mirren, the younger cousins are kleptomaniacs, the aunts argue over the house in Boston, Will regularly has nightmares, and Gat is like Heathcliff. She is crushed by her migraines and spends two days in bed. When Cady finally feels better, Harris takes her to Edgartown, a small village on Martha’s Vineyard, where they see Harris’s lawyer, who greets Cady warmly and tells her that he has heard a lot about her. Harris says that Cady has a good head on her shoulders, which sounds canned to Cady and bothers her. It also bothers her that she currently does not have a good head on her shoulders, and Harris is pointedly ignoring that.

Cady has a recovered memory from summer fifteen—she asks about a goose statue in Clairmont, and Harris tells her about how he and Tipper went to China and brought back many beautiful things, including an ivory statue in Cuddledown. Cady mentions the fact that the ivory trade is illegal, and Harris brushes it off and notes that it is still available for sale for the right price. Suddenly, Cady is struck by her grandfather’s privileged attitude, and his motto “don’t take no for an answer” takes on a different meaning. She begins to tell him about something Gat read about the ivory trade, and Harris snaps at her that he doesn’t care what Gat has read, calling him “that boy.” Cady suggests that he sell the statues, and he chastises her, telling her that she cannot tell him what to do with his own money or possessions.

Later, Cady and Gat have another conversation about starting over—Gat feels bad about lecturing her, but Cady notes that they cannot start over every day. Gat tells her just to be normal and act like friends, just for a few days until things feel right again. Cady doesn’t want to act normal—she wants to find out what happened to her. But she has been raised to pretend that things are okay when they are not. She agrees and hands him the fudge she bought with Harris.

The following day, Cady and Mirren take a boat to Edgartown without the boys. Mirren talks about her boyfriend, Drake Loggerhead, and what it’s like to have “sexual intercourse,” as she calls it. She says that it feels like roses and fireworks and rollercoasters. She also talks about going to Pomona College in the fall, and how she wants to ride horses this summer. Cady can only think about the fact that she must go back to high school for another year. Then she recalls the time they all went to Edgartown two years earlier, and how Gat bought her a book she wanted to read and inscribed it for her.

Cady tells Mirren about her memory, and how she remembers arguing with Harris about ivory statues, and how the aunts are fighting over the estate. She then asks Mirren why Gat disappeared after the accident, whether he went back to Raquel, and whether they fought, but Mirren just insists that she doesn’t know. Cady asks Mirren why Gat seemed to be angry at her, but Mirren only says that Gat has good reason to be mad but won’t say any more. When Cady sees her mother, Penny knows that she has taken the boat out without permission and lectures her about being reckless. Cady apologizes and then runs back to Windemere to write down everything she remembered on the chart above her bed.

The Liars discover that they can climb onto the roof of Cuddledown and get a view of nearly the entire island. Cady tells the others that when she dies, she wants her ashes scattered in the water on the small beach. Johnny and Mirren like the idea, but Gat says that he doesn’t want to have his ashes there at all. Cady then asks if the other Liars have ever planned out their own funerals, like in Tom Sawyer, when everyone thinks that Tom, Huck, and Joe Harper are dead, and the boys attend their own funerals. She jokes that she wants to be remembered for winning a Nobel Prize and the Olympics—in handball, though she has never actually played the sport. Mirren notes that she would rather plan her wedding to Drake Loggerhead.

Mirren insists that it is too morbid to plan a funeral, so the Liars decide to plan Cady’s Olympic medal party, including a gold dress for Cady, champagne flutes with gold balls inside, and gold handball goggles. Gat is excited about the prospect of a crew of female handball players celebrating along with Cady, and also notes that the party will have to be revamped if she only wins a silver medal. Cady feels that life is at its most beautiful on that day, and tells herself that no matter what happens in the future, in that one moment on the roof of Cuddledown, they are young forever.

This feeling of beauty and youth does not last, and the following days are not as good—the Liars do not want to go anywhere, and Mirren feels sick. Johnny creates a game in which he throws used tea bags into a mug of orange juice to see which one creates the biggest splash. Gat is reading through a list of the hundred greatest novels ever written, and Cady is starting to feel upset because he hasn’t touched or kisses her since they agreed to act normal around each other. She is aching for him, but when she indulges in her feelings for Gat, her migraines come back to her like a “gnarled crone” scratching at her brain.

One afternoon, Cady finds Johnny alone, building something out of Legos. The two of them have lunch together, and Cady asks Johnny why he never contacted her after her accident. She worries that it is because she is asking about Gat too much, but Johnny admits that he disappeared because he is a jerk and doesn’t think through his decisions. She asks why Gat disappeared, and Johnny says that that is a completely different question. Cady tells Johnny about how Gat has been acting towards her, and Johnny explains that Gat is a jerk for cheating on Raquel with Cady, and that he hated himself for it. But when he abandoned Cady, he hated himself even more.

Cady finally finds herself alone with Gat one evening at Cuddledown and decides that this is the time for them to talk about their relationship. Gat tells Cady that she is beautiful and asks if she has a boyfriend in Vermont. Cady replies that her boyfriend’s name is Percocet, the name of a painkiller that she takes for her migraines. Gat he tells Cady that she keeps asking everyone not to feel sorry for her, but then she says things that make it clear that she does, in fact, want people to feel sorry for her. Yet Cady has no idea how lucky she is: Harris sent her to Europe for eight weeks. Cady is surprised because she doesn’t realize that it is Harris who paid for the trip, but knows that it is the truth, that her father never would have been able to afford such an expense.

Cady wonders why Harris would fund such a trip, and why he wouldn’t send Penny along as well. She tells Gat that she knows she is privileged and lucky, and that she shouldn’t be ungrateful, but she also knows that it is awful to suffer from migraines like hers and that she sometimes wishes she was dead, just to make the pain stop. Gat responds harshly that she does not wish she were dead, and that she shouldn’t ever say that. Cady admits that she knows that one day, her migraines will go away, and she just has to wait for that to happen. Gat puts his arms around her and suddenly Cady feels that everything is the way it should be.

Mirren is getting sick all the time and refuses to do anything but listen to the same song over and over, singing along. Cady tells her that she has to stop singing that song, and Mirren turns serious and tells Cady that she and Gat shouldn’t be together. She asks Cady to leave Gat alone, because she will only make things harder for him and hurt him in the end. Cady responds that it is Gat who will probably hurt her, and she is willing to accept that pain rather than lose Gat altogether. Mirren admits that she lied about having a boyfriend—she envied the connection that Gat and Cady had, and wanted it so much that she ended up making up a lie about Drake Loggerhead.

At that moment, Penny calls for Cady to come and help make lunch, and Cady tells Mirren that she has to go. Penny hands Cady a tomato to slice and asks why she is always spending time down at the beach. She says that Cady should spend more time with the younger cousins and with Harris, because he won’t be around forever. She also scolds her for having a sunburn.

It is Cady’s third week on Beechwood Island, she is still getting migraines, and her supply of medicine is getting low. She wonders if her mother or cousins are taking her pills and considers the possibility that she is taking more than she realizes. After a few days alone in her room, Cady comes to see the Liars and asks what they have been doing while she was resting. They tell her that they went to the Nantucket donut shop for glazed twist, Boston crème, and jelly donuts. Cady accepts their answer, but knows that they are lying to her, because she knows that this particular donut shop only sells cake donuts.

One evening while Cady is resting in her room, she wakes to find Gat standing over her bed, looking at the notes she has been keeping to help jog her memory. She reminds him that no one wants to talk to her about what happened the summer of the accident, but Gat tells her that he is ready to talk. He apologizes for being cruel to her, because he had a girlfriend at home but is also in love with Cady. He tells her that he feels guilty because he wants things he cannot have, but Cady still does not understand what he means. She tells him that she believes someone did something to her that is too awful to remember, but Gat only kisses her and tells her he loves her.

The following day, the Liars decide to take the kayaks out to a secluded spot on the far side of the island. At first, Mirren doesn’t want Cady to go because she worries that she will hit her head again, but Gat says that Cady should come, and that ends the argument. When they get to the secluded spot, Gat and Johnny climb up the rocks to a cliff and decide to jump the twenty-five feet into the water. Cady wants to join them, but everyone advises against it. Cady gets angry and wants to know why they can jump into the water and she cannot—she decides that she must do it in order to prove herself strong and brave. She jumps, plunges into the icy water, and swims back to shore. She is fine, and feels more alive than ever.

Cady thinks about a book she gives to Gat, called Charmed Life, in which there are parallel universes with different events happening to the same people simultaneously. She wonders if this is possible in real life: if there is a parallel universe in which Cady dies jumping off the cliff, and her family is currently attending her funeral. And another in which Johnny hurts himself and has to be airlifted to the hospital to care for his injuries. And finally, another, in which Cady doesn’t go with the Liars to the secluded cove at all, and they grow apart and are no longer close friends.

Cady has another recovered memory, in which her aunt Carrie is crying, and wearing Johnny’s blue windbreaker. Cady can’t figure out why Carrie is so upset, or why she is wearing Johnny’s jacket; she ends up talking to Mirren about the memory and then asking her, again, what happened during summer fifteen. Mirren reminds Cady that the doctors have advised against talking about what happened until Cady recovers her memories on her own, but Cady is impatient to find out as much as she can. She suddenly asks Mirren why she never leaves Cuddledown, wondering if she has become agoraphobic. Mirren responds that she just doesn’t feel well, but when Cady suggests that Bess take her to the doctor, Mirren refuses.

Cady wakes to find a tire swing hanging from the tree in front of Windemere, just like the one that used to hang in front of Clairmont, that Tipper would swing Cady on when she is younger. She recalls squeezing into the tire swing with Johnny, Gat, and Mirren during summer fifteen, and how they hardly fit. They yelled for a push and finally convinced Taft and Will to push them once, and their combined weight made them swing around and around until they are dizzy. Cady looks inside of the new tire swing and finds an envelope addressed to her from Gat. Inside, she finds a dozen dried roses.

Cady tells another fairy tale: there once was a king with three beautiful daughters, and they began to have children of their own. One of the daughters gave birth to twins—one human and one mooseling, which brought the daughter shame. As the children grew up, so did the mooseling, and he became smarter than his human brother and cousins, but the king and queen still felt disgusted by him. When he was old enough, his mother packed him a bag and sent him away from the castle, and he was happy to escape. Cady ends the story by noting that maybe, just maybe, the mooseling will return to burn the castle to the ground.