58 pages • 1 hour read
One Day in December
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Chapter 12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “December 12, 2010”
Laurie’s father survived the heart attack, but his health is in decline. The stress of the family she is not living with keeps Laurie tired and unfocused on her goal of finding a magazine job. The holiday season brings with it many parties at the hotel she works at, and she feels that “Christmas insults my eyeballs everywhere I look” (85). While shopping, she runs into Jack “bundled inside his big winter coat and scarf, and I sigh because I’m caught by the memory of him at the bus stop” (86). Nonetheless, Laurie has come to better terms with her feelings for Jack. She has started to truly appreciate him as a friend and has been able to get closer to him while still maintaining her friendship with Sarah.
Jack and Laurie decide to go around looking for Jack’s gift for Sarah. Jack brings Laurie to a bazaar of unique jewelry, a hidden spot in London Jack is familiar with because his father bought his mother a gift there she still wears now, years after his death. Jack notices how tired and stressed Laurie looks. When they find Sarah’s gift, Jack invites Laurie for a drink, and when she agrees, Jack is surprised: “I was sure she going to dash off” (90). At the bar, Jack and Laurie begin talking deeply about their families. They also talk about work, and Laurie is confident that one day Jack will achieve his dreams and that “his voice will be on the airwaves somewhere as I eat my cornflakes or drift off to sleep over the years to come. I find the thought strangely comforting” (93). Consumed by the new crisis in her family, Laurie has not been able to spend much time on her job search or on developing a better love life for herself. As they discuss their family problems, Jack comforts Laurie and tells her that she has a way about her that makes people feel good and that he has sensed this about her since the first day they met. Laurie, caught up in the moment, asks him if he means the first time or “the very first time” (96).
Jack and Laurie are suddenly in a situation that could determine their futures. Jack thinks about what to do, knowing that “to acknowledge my memory of those few moments at the bus stop would be a monu-fucking-mental mistake. Our entire friendship is built on the dynamics of my position as her best friend’s boyfriend” (97). Jack feigns ignorance and sees the remaining light leave Laurie’s eyes. Laurie cries, and Jack caresses her in an effort to comfort her and to fix the embarrassment he’s causing. They get physically closer and nearly kiss, but Jack stops it. Laurie, embarrassed and ashamed, leaves the bar in a rush. Jack follows her out, and she admits that she wants him to kiss her. She also admits to herself:
I’m so very tired of swimming. Most of the time I feel like the tide is going to pull me under, but here in Jack’s arm I feel as if he’s just reached over the side of a life raft and hauled me to safety. I realize, bleakly, that I don’t think there will ever be a time when I don’t have feelings for this man (100).
Jack continues to comfort her in an embrace and finally pushes her against a wall and kisses her in the snow. They part, believing that this can be the only time they will kiss. Laurie watches him walk away from her cab and feels that the moment from two years ago on the bus is happening yet again.
Chapter 12 Analysis
Chapter 12 is a major turning point for the novel. Chapters 1-11 all foreshadowed a moment when Laurie and Jack would finally reveal their true feelings for each other, and in Chapter 12, Laurie admits that she remembers Jack from the bus, and they kiss.
The significance of Chapter 12 is heightened by the new place in her life Laurie finds herself in. The optimism typical in her characterization has been replaced by stress and pessimism, and dealing with her family’s issues has kept her away from a focus on more hopeful goals such as finding a job in magazines and finding someone else to love. Laurie is in a much more vulnerable place than in the previous chapters, so lets her guard down and reveals more than she did in Chapters 1-11.
Jack’s characterization remains the same. He is kind, empathetic, and responsible, and he still cannot admit to Laurie that he remembers the bus. Silver is potentially pointing out a difference between men and women here in that Laurie is taking emotional risks that Jack cannot for the sake of propriety. Even when Jack kisses Laurie, he does so in the context of comforting her, a role he has played for many months now. Although he reveals his attraction to her, neither character can dream that they will go beyond this slightly inebriated moment in the snow.
Chapter 12 brings yet another cycle to fruition in Silver’s structured narrative. Yet again, Laurie finds herself in the snow, stressed by Christmas and watching Jack. The difference in the two years is important, but the repetitive nature of Laurie’s emotions, as well the repetitive imagery of her driving away from Jack, presents the readers with two similar yet opposed conflicts: The first is that the lack of opportunity to pursue her love for Jack continues with heartbreaking effect, and the second is the foreshadowing that this vicious cycle will only continue. The reader is invited to ponder the issue: If Laurie could not get over Jack before, how will she get over him now that they have kissed?
Laurie expresses the feeling that she is tired of swimming against the current, a feeling Jack can also express on her behalf. The reader can see how aligned Laurie and Jack are, seeing one another for their intricate depths. Laurie describes the physical closeness to Jack as if she were watching a television show, knowing that the kiss will lead only to more heartbreak, which is the exact voyeuristic sensation the reader is invited to feel.
The presence Christmas and the holiday season creates another symbolic cycle. With Christmas comes the New Year, full of possibility. However, the reader has seen how Laurie continues to enter a new year with that sense of possibility and how she approaches each Christmas with that possibility run dry. What is meant to be a cheerful time becomes, for Laurie, a reminder of how stuck and sad she is.
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