44 pages • 1 hour read
Lana FergusonThe Nanny
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 22-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary: “Cassie”
Sophie is fine when Cassie and Aiden reveal that they are dating, under the condition that Cassie will stay her nanny even if they break up. Cassie and Aiden take Sophie to Wanda’s so they can go to the party, and Aiden is nervous to meet Wanda. Wanda teases Aiden, who assures her she can call if she needs anything. Cassie and Aiden have a great time at the party and at home afterward, and Cassie realizes just how much she is falling for Aiden.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Cassie”
Cassie and Aiden wake up the next morning not knowing what time it is as they both have left their phones downstairs. However, when Aiden finally gets to his phone, he receives a call from the hospital saying Wanda had a heart attack. Wanda instructed Sophie to call 911 before she passed out, but Sophie couldn’t reach either Cassie or Aiden after doing so. Instead, she called Iris, who waited with her at the hospital.
When Cassie and Aiden arrive at the hospital, Iris berates them for not caring about Sophie, accusing them of only caring about their own interests. She threatens to take Aiden to court for custody of Sophie, but Aiden threatens her with a restraining order if she doesn’t leave. Cassie feels immense guilt as Aiden starts to grow cold around her.
Cassie goes to see Wanda, and she starts to wonder if she is in love with Aiden. Wanda tries to reassure Cassie that she should not feel guilty, because if Sophie hadn’t been with her, she might have died. Wanda tries to convince Cassie that she is not a burden just because her parents thought she was, but as Cassie leaves the hospital, she makes the decision to leave Sophie and Aiden
Chapter 24 Summary: “Aiden”
Sophie isn’t mad at Aiden or Cassie, just scared because Wanda got hurt. As Aiden tries to explain that she saved Wanda, Sophie worries that Cassie is mad at her and won’t want to be her nanny anymore because Wanda got hurt on her watch.
When he comes downstairs, Aiden finds Cassie crying on the couch. He tries to reassure her, but she tells him she needs to leave to make it easier on him and Sophie. Aiden’s heart breaks as he realizes he is in love with her, and he doesn’t want her to disappear again.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Cassie”
Cassie stays with Wanda but barely leaves the apartment. When she does go out for groceries, she sees Iris at a cafe and unconsciously goes over to talk to her. Cassie asks Iris why she is trying to take Sophie away from Aiden, who she argues is a good dad, and Iris tells her that Sophie is her only family now that Rebecca is gone. Cassie says Iris should try to work things out with Aiden. Iris asks if Cassie loves Aiden, and she admits she does, though she also tells her that she left them the day she last saw her at the hospital.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Cassie”
Cassie feels somewhat better in the days after talking to Iris, but Wanda still tries to get her out of the house, not wanting Cassie to end up like her. She tells Cassie that she was in love with a man when she was around Cassie’s age, but she turned him down and later realized she was miserable. Cassie knows she will regret leaving Aiden without allowing him a say in the matter, but she still worries she would have been a burden had she stayed. Wanda leaves for a date, and an hour later, Cassie hears a knock at the door and is surprised to see Sophie.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Cassie”
Sophie reveals that she took an Uber to Wanda’s apartment because she needed to see Cassie. She heard Aiden talking about her going to Iris’s house and now thinks that her dad is going to give her away because she ran Cassie off. Cassie assures Sophie this is not the case and that she left because she wanted to protect them, which Sophie doesn’t buy. Cassie knows Aiden must be panicking and that she must take Sophie back.
When they get to Aiden’s house, police are outside, and Sophie asks Cassie to come in with her, which Cassie thinks she owes to the little girl. Aiden is relieved to see Sophie and assures her that he would never give her away; he had only been talking to Iris about spending more time with Sophie. When Cassie tries to leave, Aiden mentions what Iris told him about their conversation at the cafe. While Aiden tries to get Cassie to admit why she said those things to Iris, Sophie mentions that it is because Cassie is in love with him and offers that Aiden is in love with her too. The couple reconciles as they confirm what Sophie said is true.
Epilogue Summary: “Aiden”
A year later, Cassie waits to see if she has passed her exams to become an occupational therapist, which she has. Knowing this would happen, Aiden made reservations at a restaurant to celebrate along with Wanda, Iris, and the women’s respective new partners. In the final sentences, Aiden alludes to his plan to propose to Cassie that night.
Chapter 22-Epilogue Analysis
The upheaval and conflict the characters encounter in this section contrast with the relative peace they experienced in the section before, following the conventional structure of contemporary romance novels: Everything goes wrong for the protagonists just when everything was going right. This section of the novel begins with Sophie accepting Cassie and Aiden’s relationship, and the couple having a wonderful night to themselves. However, that quickly changes when Sophie is unable to contact them after Wanda has a heart attack. Iris’s reaction only makes things worse, adding to the guilt Cassie and Aiden have for not being there for Sophie. Even smaller things go badly for Cassie, such as missing class and schoolwork, parallelling the minor improvements she had in previous chapters. Though she has been dealing with her self-doubt and starting to recognize that she is not unlovable, Cassie’s insecurities begin to come up again in this section. She tells herself that she is selfish because she was distracted by her happiness with Aiden, leading her to not be there for Sophie. Not only does this incident make Cassie feel guilty, but it also makes her feel undeserving of Aiden and Sophie’s love. This adds to her perception of herself being a burden, which she learned from her parents, ultimately causing Cassie to leave two people she loves in an attempt to protect them from herself. The contrast between the happiness Cassie experiences on her night out with Aiden and the despair and guilt she feels shortly after deepens the narrative tension and heightens the stakes of her decision to leave.
Cassie continues to be defined by the theme of Overcoming Self-Doubt in this section as she allows her insecurities to control her and shape her decisions. She doesn’t think to ask how Aiden or Sophie feel about her leaving, instead making the decision for them out of her own insecurities. Her parents’ neglect continues to shape her belief that she is a burden to anyone she has a relationship with. The self-doubt that Cassie has struggled with the whole novel begins to rub off on Sophie, as evidenced by her conviction that she is the reason that Cassie left. Cassie begins to piece together how wrong her actions were when she talks with Wanda and learns about her past regrets. Similarly, her conversation with Iris at the cafe causes her to question her choices. However, Cassie only fully recognizes the damage caused by her actions when she sees that Sophie is beginning to see herself as a burden too. When Cassie tries to explain to Sophie why she left, Sophie only says, “That’s silly. You can’t protect us. You’re too small” (388). It is only after hearing Sophie’s 10-year-old wisdom that Cassie sees the error of her choice. When Aiden confirms Sophie’s sentiment later in the chapter, some of Cassie’s self-doubt begins to dissipate again. Cassie’s actions in this section demonstrate the tenuous, nonlinear nature of overcoming insecurity, with her self-image ebbing and flowing as situations around her change.
The Necessity of Support Systems is emphasized toward the end of the novel as it is revealed just how much Cassie, Aiden, and Sophie need one another. Cassie’s conversation with Iris shows that everyone needs this kind of support as Cassie begins to empathize with Iris’s loneliness and her desire to be with Sophie. Iris and Aiden’s willingness to work together for Sophie’s benefit emphasizes the point Cassie had been trying to make the whole novel about Sophie needing all the love and support she could get. It is revealed in the epilogue that this strategy is working for all characters, and Iris and Wanda become part of Cassie and Aiden’s social circle. With all of the primary characters reconciled and supporting each other, The Nanny is given the foundation for a happy ending. As is conventional of contemporary romance, once the primary characters deal with the issues preventing them from having a romantic relationship, all deserving characters are rewarded with personal, professional, and romantic happy endings. These happy endings often hint at the future of the main characters, as occurs in the epilogue when Aiden alludes to proposing to Cassie. Now that they have realized how they can support one another, Cassie and Aiden have the peaceful relationship they deserve.
