56 pages • 1 hour read
Holly RinglandThe Lost Flowers of Alice Hart
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary: “Desert Oak”
By springtime, Alice learns to read Dylan’s moods, as she used to with her abusive father. As long as she is mindful, the couple remains blissful.
One night, Dylan works late, so he’ll miss their walk. Alice tells him she’ll stay in, but she decides to walk Pip anyway. They get home late, and Dylan is rageful. He kicks Pip in the ribs and lunges at Alice. He accuses her of cheating and shakes her by the neck. Alice calls Pip, who is shivering with fear. The dog seems okay.
Dylan cries. He apologizes and says she’s the love of his life, promising that he lashed out from worry. He thinks other guys are much better and that she’ll fall in love with someone else. He’s become obsessed and possessive of her. Alice defends herself, saying that she only went for a walk, and reassures him that she loves him, no matter what. Dylan gives her a bath and tends to her bruises.
Pip is traumatized from Dylan’s attack. Alice emails Moss for help. She lies that Pip was attacked by a wild animal. Moss sends medicine for Pip’s ribs. Slowly, Pip becomes less fearful, but she clings to Alice over Dylan.
A few weeks later, Alice is chosen to do a controlled burn in the park. Aiden is her team lead. They burn specific areas so that seeds and plants can be reborn: Some plants only thrive with fire. Alice is lost in memories of the fire as a child and her grief, and she has a panic attack. Aiden calms her. He shares that Lulu gets anxiety too. Alice is prideful and satisfied with her work.
Since she gets home late, she worries about Dylan’s reaction, but she hopes he’s happy about her accomplishment. Dylan snaps that he saw her with Aiden doing the fire burn. He thinks she’s cheating. He hits her and tosses her to the floor.
Alice and Pip escape to her house, where Candy and Twig are unexpectedly at her door.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Lantern Bush”
Candy and Twig found Alice through Moss. He called them again once Alice emailed about Pip, since her email signature had the national park’s name.
Candy emailed and called every day, but Alice never responded. She’s been too consumed by thoughts of Dylan to deal with reminders of her past. Candy and Twig explain June’s heart attack; she died not long after the flood. Alice falls into grief. They cremated June, but they haven’t spread her ashes without Alice.
For Alice’s next four days off, Candy and Twig stay with her. She shows them her favorite hikes, including the desert peas in the crater. They’re mesmerized by one of Thornfield’s favorite flowers and the Aboriginal story.
Candy and Twig present Alice with the Thornfield Dictionary, per June’s will. Besides the flower meanings, June wrote all their family’s stories and secrets in the book. Candy explains how volatile Clem could be, especially regarding Agnes. Clem decided to disown them all after June’s decision to cut him out of Thornfield. Alice is upset by the news, blaming Candy and Twig for never telling her. Candy says that it was June’s story to tell.
Twig explains that Alice’s baby brother survived the fire. He was born prematurely and ill, and June didn’t want Alice to endure more grief if the baby died. Alice is shocked and sleeps for hours. Candy and Twig are concerned about her bruises and try to convince her to return to Thornfield, but Alice declines. Twig gives Alice an envelope with the information about her brother. She doesn’t open it yet.
After Candy and Twig leave, Alice is frantic about Dylan, who left her many angry voicemails. She hurries to his house, but it’s empty. Lulu finds Alice crying outside Dylan’s house. Lulu says Dylan talked to Sarah, and now he’s gone. Alice sobs harder. Lulu sees her bruises and asks if Dylan was hurting her. Lulu brings Alice to her house.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Bat’s Wing Coral Tree”
At Lulu’s house, Alice asks what she did wrong. She cries and throws up. Lulu comforts her. Lulu confesses that while she tried to warn Alice, she never told her she dated Dylan. Lulu confirms that he never hurt her, but he was manipulative, controlling, and angry. She thought it was her fault until she learned better. Lulu never thought Dylan could be violent though. They plan to ask Sarah about Dylan tomorrow.
Sarah talks to Alice privately. Dylan filed a complaint against her; he told Sarah that Alice was physically violent to him after the controlled burn. Alice is horrified but can’t find her voice to deny his lies. She feels betrayed. Sarah suspends her but asks if there is anything else she should know. Alice still doesn’t talk.
Since she can’t work, Alice joins Lulu’s hikes. She’s in disbelief about Dylan’s actions, wondering if he feels remorseful. When a woman on the hike tries to grab the desert peas, Alice tackles her. Soon after, Alice is fired for assaulting a tourist.
Alice stops at Ruby’s house, who tells her to find her fire, the place where she feels warm with the people she loves. Alice doesn’t know where she belongs but mentions her brother. Ruby gives her a necklace with flowers that signify a cure for heartache.
Alice contemplates whether she should fight for her job and fix her relationship with Dylan. She remembers their love and promises to live by the coast and raise their children. However, after Alice opens the envelope about her brother, she chooses to go meet him.
On the long drive, she stops at Moss’s vet clinic and leaves him a note and flowers of gratitude.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Green Birdflower”
Alice drives back to her hometown, miles from the desert. She goes to the library, where she sees Sally again. Sally is thrilled, having been waiting for the moment Alice would appear for years now. She takes Alice in to live with her. When Alice sees a carved wooden statue of a little girl with flowers in Sally’s garden, she’s upset and confused. She’s seen carvings of that girl before, in her father’s shed.
Sally explains that Clem gave her the statue after their daughter died. Sally was in love with Clem. They had a brief affair, and Sally gave birth to their daughter, Gillian. Sally’s late husband, John, always thought she was his daughter. Gillian died from leukemia at age five. Clem never showed interest in Gillian, until he sent the statue after the funeral. Alice mistakenly thought Clem’s carvings of the little girl were her, but they were Gillian.
Agnes secretly attended Gillian’s funeral. She knew about the affair. Agnes could tell Sally’s goodness, so Agnes wrote that Sally should be the second guardian if June wasn’t able to take her children. Alice is shocked and overwhelmed. Sally raised Alice’s baby brother, Charlie, who is almost 20 years old now. He always knew he was adopted.
Sally sent letters and pictures of Charlie to Thornfield for years, but June didn’t want any contact. Alice promises she never knew about Charlie, and Sally believes her.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Foxtails”
Alice settles in with Sally, who gives her time and support. Sally listens to all her stories and sets her up with the same grief counselor she visited after Gillian died. Alice appreciates Sally like a second mother. She’s still in touch with Lulu and Moss via letters.
Alice visits her countryside home, which has been turned into a beachfront bar and youth hostel. She goes to her parents’ graves instead and leaves them flowers. Though she’s nervous, she feels excited to meet Charlie, her only remaining blood family.
Sally thinks of her past with Clem, who loved her for a night and then ignored her. John, a policeman, was kind and stable. Since she married John quickly, no one thought it strange that she was pregnant right away. Gillian’s death affected John deeply, so Sally never told him the truth.
Charlie is nervous as he arrives for dinner at Sally’s house to meet Alice. He brings flowers that mean “return of happiness” (365).
Chapter 30 Summary: “Wheel of Fire”
A few months later, Alice gathers items to build a fire. She’s gotten closer with Sally, Charlie, and his girlfriend. Soon, Alice will leave for a three-month writing residency in Copenhagen, where Agnes’s family was from.
Since meeting Charlie, the siblings have spent time together each week. Alice shares memories of their parents, and they share other life stories. Charlie works as a gardener with plant nurseries and flower markets. After seeing his love for plants, Alice decides to introduce Charlie to Thornfield Farm, Candy, and Twig. She let him have the Thornfield Dictionary to read about their family and the flowers’ meanings. Alice, Candy, Twig, and Charlie scatter June’s ashes at the river, which brings closure. Alice then signs papers to give Charlie the flower farm, believing that he is the deserving man June would have wanted to run the land. Charlie accepts with shock.
Now, Alice gathers her manuscript notebooks she started in the desert. She titles it The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. After letting people like Sally read the memoir, she burns the book on the fire—along with other parts of her past, like Dylan’s emails begging for her to come back. As she watches the fire, she thinks back to 20 years ago, when she dreamed of setting her father on fire, and how her story has transformed her.
Chapters 25-30 Analysis
The novel is full of circles and cycles, including how Alice comes full circle in her journey. The narrative is framed by fire, starting with the opening images wishing for Clem’s rebirth through fire, to the final scene of her burning memories of her past at a campfire. This framing, a figurative forging through fire, signifies Alice’s transformation and rebirth into a new phase of life. It is notable that fire—through the controlled burn—is also what ultimately brings an end to the cycle of abuse in the novel. Alice mistakenly believes she is at fault for Dylan’s behavior, wondering what she did wrong when he was hurting her. It is only when Dylan’s actions become physical and vengeful, sparked by his irrational jealousy over seeing Alice with Aiden at the burn site, that Alice accepts that his behaviors are not her fault. Unlike when fire symbolized destruction and guilt, by the end of the novel, it represents courage and renewal, leading to Alice’s next stage: finding her voice through writing. Having finally received answers to the secrets long withheld from her, as well as the support of a new maternal figure, Alice is finally living for herself, not making compromises for anyone else’s wants or needs or letting her voice be silenced.
The crater, her locket, and Sally’s presence are additional symbolic circles that are important to Alice’s journey. In the park’s crater, not only are the desert peas significant, but the shape of the circle itself is indicative of how Alice must travel from beginning to end, from her hometown to the desert and back again, to achieve wholeness. The round locket with Agnes’s picture leads her back to Agnes’s ancestry: The writing residency is in Agnes’s original hometown of Copenhagen, creating a circle of return again to her mother’s past. Lastly, when Alice returns home and reconnects with Sally, she’s coming back to the woman who not only supported Alice’s love of learning and books as a child, but who stayed at the hospital reading her stories, and who attempted to keep Alice “in the loop” regarding Charlie. A remembered voice and source of kindness, Sally is thus a strong representation of circling back to the beginning.
The Impact of Secrets advances in the final chapters as Alice’s longstanding grief is the final circle that is closed. Before this point, Alice couldn’t figure out her identity or a future path where she felt like she belonged. It is only through learning about June’s death, Sally’s significant (but unknown) role in her life, the existence of Charlie, and her father’s affair that she finally has all the missing pieces she needs to understand herself, her story, and her desires. That Alice is only able to move forward when she knows the real stories that define her is an homage to narrative theory. In narrative theory, people are a compilation of stories. The stories of her family, the Aboriginal people, her mother’s fairy tales, her ever-present love of flowers and their meanings, and Alice’s memoir all compile to renew Alice and her sense of self. Writing therapy, through the written words of June’s Thornfield Dictionary and Alice’s own memoir, healed her and helped her come of age. Now, with her trust in others restored and no additional betrayals or secrets waiting for her, Alice can analyze her story and write her next chapters in the manner she chooses, which means following her dream of writing, connecting with Charlie, and The Long Process of Overcoming Trauma and Grief.
