The Sun is Also a Star Chapter 129: Time + Distance: A Measured History Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • You've heard Natasha and Daniel's epic love story...but where are they now?
  • Natasha enrolls in school, becomes a waitress to help her family make ends meet, and fakes a Jamaican accent. She has to let Daniel go. 
  • Daniel moves out of his parents' house and works to put himself through Hunter College, where he studies English and writes sad poems about Natasha. 
  • Five years after their move, Natasha's mother passes away. Natasha thinks about calling Daniel, but it's been so long. 
  • Natasha's brother, Peter, loves Jamaica. Someday he'll marry a Jamaican woman, have a daughter, and name her after his mother. 
  • Natasha's dad moves from Kingston to Montego Bay, acting in local productions. After Patricia dies, he realizes he chose correctly all along. 
  • Note: It would have been nice if he realized that sooner. 
  • Daniel's mom and dad sell the store, buy an apartment in South Korea, and split their time between there and New York City. 
  • Charlie goes back to Harvard and stops speaking to his family after he graduates. Daniel doesn't miss him. 
  • More time goes by, and Natasha convinces herself she's romanticizing her day with Daniel...but it does lead her to study physics. She smiles whenever she remembers their conversation about love and dark matter. 
  • Even Daniel starts to forget how perfect their day was—because everything that seemed so right also went wrong in the end. 
  • But he also remembers that Natasha said falling in love couldn't compete with the formation of the universe, and he thinks she's wrong. 
  • "Because everything looks like chaos up close. Daniel thinks it's a matter of scale. If you pull back far enough and wait long enough, then order emerges. Maybe their universe is just taking longer to form" (340).