The Sense of an Ending

Tony receives a letter from a lawyer informing him of a strange inheritance left to him by Mrs. Sarah Ford, Veronica’s mother. The bequest seems to be a diary. Tony then receives a letter from Veronica, revealing that the diary is Adrian’s and she has it in her possession. She refuses to show it to Tony, however, and abruptly ends their correspondence.

Tony becomes fixated on the diary. He wonders whether Adrian confesses in the diary that Tony’s cruel letter propelled him toward suicide. Since Mrs. Ford left him the diary, Tony seeks legal advice to try to obtain it.

Tony decides to meet with Veronica to discuss the diary, hoping it will reveal Adrian's state of mind before his suicide. The meeting is awkward and tense, and Veronica remains secretive and defensive. She claims she’s burned the diary.

When they meet, Veronica gives Tony a letter. It’s a copy of the letter he sent to Adrian after Adrian wrote that he was dating Veronica. Tony’s letter, addressed to both Adrian and Veronica, is much more vicious than he remembers. He calls Veronica a “Bitch,” “bore,” “snob,” and “cockteaser,” and says that she and Adrian “deserve” each other. He also says that Adrian is an intellectual snob, and that he wouldn’t wish an unborn child to know that Adrian and Veronica were its parents.

Tony feels full of remorse for his nastiness. He also remembers that the postcard he sent Adrian before the letter featured a bridge where people die by suicide.

Tom apologizes to Veronica by email. In a later email, he inquires after her parents. She responds that both are dead, and that her mother struggled with memory issues prior to her death.

Later, Tony will read a single page of Adrian’s journal. As reads it, he realizes that it contains nothing to suggest that the letter bothered him. Instead, Adrian is absorbed in tedious and solipsistic metaphysical meditation. This leaves Tony even more confused about the past—and even more determined to learn why Adrian killed himself.

As Tony's search for the truth about Adrian’s death intensifies, he reconnects with Colin, hoping he might have some insights. Colin reveals that Adrian and Veronica continued seeing each other. He also shares that Adrian suspected the child was his own, not Colin's.

In the light of this new information, Tony accepts that Adrian might not have been driven to suicide by the nasty letter at all. Instead, he might have acted like another school friend they used to ridicule, who died by suicide because he got a girl pregnant and could not face the shame and responsibility.

Tony visits Sarah Ford again, hoping to obtain more information about Adrian and Veronica's relationship. During their conversation, Sarah mentions a letter Adrian wrote to her before his death, which Tony had never known about. Tony discovers that Adrian’s diary was, in fact, a long letter addressed to him. Sarah alleges that Adrian blamed Tony for Veronica aborting their child, claiming that Tony's vicious letter had a profound impact on her decision.

Tony does not seem to be off the hook for Adrian’s death after all. The revelation deeply disturbs him. He visits Veronica again, hoping to make sense of the past and to apologize.

She reveals the circumstances of Adrian’s death, shifting Tony’s perception of the past once again. Instead of aborting the child, which was in fact Adrian’s, she chose to have it. However, Veronica remains stubborn and unwilling to acknowledge any responsibility for the events that transpired. Tony leaves feeling defeated.

Tony's obsession with the past leads him to keep meeting with Veronica. During one meeting she shows him a group of adults with intellectual disabilities. Tony comes to realize that one of them is the now-grown child whom Veronica did not, in fact, abort, and that he is indeed Adrian's son.

Tony realizes that Adrian was not the heroic philosopher he made himself out to be. Instead, he was scared to live a responsible, conventional life as a father. Rather than face the consequences of his actions, he took what Tony perceives as a way out.

Tony contemplates how time has an arbitrary component. In this way, it is like a river running in reverse.

Finally, Tony reflects on a meeting with Adrian’s mother, Mrs. Finn. Through their conversation, Tony uncovers that Adrian had been sexually involved with Veronica’s mother, Sarah Ford, and that Veronica might have been sexually abused by her brother and father. At a pub, Tony sees the man with intellectual disabilities whom he believes to be Veronica and Adrian’s son. However, he learns from the man’s care worker that the man’s parents are Adrian and Veronica’s mother; Veronica is not his mother, but his sister.

With the truth about everyone finally laid bare, Tony reevaluates his life and character. He realizes that his perception of the past was flawed. He had been both self-centered and quick to judge others. He was too hard on Veronica and too easy on Adrian. But knowing reality brings him not peace or closure but “great unrest” (150).