Reminders of Him Summary (Spoiler Alert!)
The beginning: Reminders of Him Summary
The novel begins with Kenna Rowen visiting the place where her husband Scotty was killed in a terrible car accident.
Kenna pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter of Scotty and was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.
Kenna was pregnant during her initial time in prison, she gave birth to a girl who she now wants to take custody of.
She is back in town and has rented a shabby apartment.
Kenna visits a bar and meets Ledger Ward
One evening, she goes to a bar where the bar owner Ledger Ward spots her and gets curious about her.
When she leaves the bar, Ledger invites Kenna to revisit the bar post 11 pm without explaining why.
Kenna does visit the bar in the night again.
After some time, when Ledger and Kenna are the only two people in the bar, Ledger begins the conversation by asking her name to which she replies ‘Nicole’.
The reason is that the town is small, and everyone knows the name Kenna due to all the wrong reasons so she doesn’t want anyone to know that she is back in town.
To Ledger, Kenna tells her name as Nicole because she wants to avoid people from knowing that she is back in town.
While having this conversation, suddenly Kenna makes a move and they start making out.
During this phase, Kenna realizes that Ledger is the same best friend of Scotty whom they were supposed to meet on the night Scotty proposed to Kenna.
Kenna suddenly withdraws herself and runs outside crying.
Ledger consoles her by giving her a hug and gives her a ride in his truck where in they both get physical again.
They stop when Ledger sees a police officer Grady who is already familiar with Ledger and then Ledger drops Kenna home.
Kenna refuses to see Ledger again.
At her apartment, Kenna writes a letter to Scotty even though he is dead stating that she finally met Ledger tonight.
Kenna realizes that Ledger’s truck was the same in which Scotty picked her up for their first date. She also wonders if Ledger has ever met her daughter.
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Diem - the daughter of Kenna and Scotty
Diem who is a little girl likes to see Ledger’s truck and know that he is home.
She is actually the daughter of Kenna who lives with Scotty’s parents - the Landrys.
Ledger goes the next morning to Landrys’ house, they greet him cordially. His purpose is to pick Diem and take her to a T-ball game as the Landrys - Patrick and Grace - have some other business to take care of.
Kenna bags a job at a grocery store in the town by the name of Nicole to avoid any kind of gossip around her.
She encounters Ledger over there but politely refuses to talk to him as she doesn't want to appear easily distracted in the eyes of her employer.
Her shift manager Amy tells her that Ledger has a niece which Kenna thinks might be her daughter Diem.
At the game, Diem asks Ledger about her mother and one of the girls asked Diem why her mother never shows up at the game.
Ledger has no answer, he takes the question to Grace (grandmother of Diem and Scotty's mother).
They both come to the conclusion that they should figure out an answer to this question.
When the Landrys came to know that Kenna was pregnant then they fought for and won the custody of their soon-to-be-born granddaughter.
Kenna was even denied visitation rights to her daughter.
The Landrys didn't know much about Kenna as Scotty and she dated for only six months.
The Landrys always thought of her as the killer of their son.
Because when the accident occurred, Kenna fled the scene in shock assuming Scotty was dead.
Later she learned that Scotty had been alive for 6 hours and had she called the police instead of running away, Scotty could have been saved.
Kenna hates herself for this turn of events and she thinks over all this when she heads for the Landrys' house.
She wonders how would they react upon seeing her.
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Kenna visits Landrys’ house
At her job in the grocery store where she encounters Ledger again. Since she doesn’t appear as an employee who gets easily distracted hence she chooses to refrain from talking to Ledger.
Kenna shows up at Landrys’ house to meet her daughter. When she is about to knock on the door Ledger pulls her away.
Ledger has now realized that Kenna is the mother of Diem.
He tries to persuade her to not create a scene but Kenna leaves his house and knocks on the door of Landrys’ house.
Ledger then grabs Kenna and threatens to call the police if she doesn’t leave immediately and never comes back.
Ledger tells Kenna in his truck that the Landrys’ would never want her close to them and she must go away.
Kenna cries and remembers the time when she prematurely delivered her daughter and when she was taken to NICU, she never got to see her again.
Kenna didn’t even get to see even a glimpse of her daughter.
Patrick and Grace are upset on seeing Kenna but Ledger consoles them by telling them about Kenna not being financially strong enough to fight a legal battle for her daughter.
Roman, who is a bartender at Ledger’s bar, makes Ledger think about the hardships that Kenna has gone through and the loss she has suffered.
Ledger thus goes back to check on her but Kenna’s attitude is dismissive towards him.
She tells Ledger that he had come back to check on her because if she committed suicide he would feel free of any guilt.
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Kenna’s relationship with her own mother
Kenna had a strained relationship with her mother.
When she was small, her mother flew off to Hawaii to be with some guy thus she spent most of her childhood in foster care.
And when Kenna’s mother came back into her life, their relationship was worse than ever.
By the time Kenna reached high school, she and her mother had no relationship left between them.
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Kenna reached out to her mother from prison when she was 7 months pregnant to file a petition against Landrys’ to get custody of her daughter as her maternal grandmother.
This would actually give Kenna access to her daughter in the future.
But her mother refused to entertain the request.
She told her it was too much of an inconvenience for her and that Kenna always had been unappreciative toward her mother.
Ledger talks to Patrick Landry
Ledger suggests Patrick Landry to hear Kenna once but he dismisses the idea, stating the reason that Grace (his wife) would never interact with Kenna.
Ledger thinks had Scotty been alive would he have wanted the things to turn out like this.
The next day, Ledger comes over to where Kenna works to buy groceries. Kenna bags the groceries for Ledger and puts them in his car.
There she asks Ledger if her daughter Diem looks like her to which Ledger says ‘yes’.
Later Kenna visits Ledger’s bar and orders coffee. Since it’s raining outside hence she requests Ledger to drop her home.
Ledger is in a dilemma as he deals with an internal conflict - one part of him has developed feelings for Kenna and there is another part that has hated her for a long time.
However, Ledger agrees to give her a ride home.
When Kenna met Scotty's parents
Kenna mulls over kidnapping Diem but dismisses it as a bad idea as it could be traumatic for Diem.
She thinks about the time when she went with Scotty to meet his parents.
She wore a dress that didn’t go down well with Scotty’s parents as they were religious people who prayed before meals.
Grace even caught Scotty smoking but Kenna feigned her to be the smoker here as Grace didn’t know that Scotty smoked occasionally.
Grace even overheard Scotty making love to Kenna in his room and got uncomfortable with this fact.
Mulling over this incidence Kenna thinks of herself as a girl whom one’s parents would never approve of.
Kenna tries to approach Diem and gets served
Ledger runs into Grace(Scotty’s mother) and Diem(Kenna and Scotty’s daughter) in the parking lot of the grocery store.
Kenna spots them and approaches them.
Seeing which Grace rushes away with Diem.
Kenna is distraught and is in no mood to work after this incident so Ledger offers her a ride home.
He sees a letter addressed to Scotty in Kenna’s personal belongings.
During the ride home, Kenna tells Ledger that she is happy about Diem having a good home but she wants to see her daughter as she has never seen her.
To this Ledger shows her a video of Diem.
Kenna feels delighted seeing Diem in the video and seeing her love is when Ledger understands why Scotty fell in love with her.
Ledger shows more videos of Diem to Kenna in her apartment.
On one side he feels the guilt of doing so without the knowledge of Patrick and Grace.
He tells her that Kenna wants Diem only for her own sake and not for Diem as Diem is happy in her home with her grandparents.
Kenna understands what Ledger says and tells him that she will get out of the life of her daughter and Landrys’ but it will take time as she has no money.
Ledger thus offers her the job of doing dishes in the back of the bar on the condition that no one finds out about it.
Kenna takes the job under the name of ‘Nicole’.
Ledger has only told the truth to Roman at the bar. Kenna as ‘Nicole’ is assigned the job of helping Aaron who handles the kitchen of the bar.
Ledger meets Patrick and Grace after the dance recital of Diem. Grace tells her that she has filed a restraining order against Kenna after she walked toward her and Diem in the parking lot of the grocery store.
Why Ledger called off his wedding?
Kenna works hard at the bar because she is paid more than what she was getting at the grocery store. Aaron is impressed by her work.
When she gets a break from work she chats with Roman.
Also, an employee at the bar thinks that Ledger has hired Kenna to make his ex-girlfriend jealous.
Kenna gets to know that Ledger was supposed to get married this month.
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When she asks Ledger about his ex, he tells her that he broke up with her because she was not ready to accept Diem as family.
Ledger asks Kenna about her writing and about the letters that she has written to Scotty.
Kenna tells him that she has written 300 such letters to Scotty.
When Ledger asks her to read out the one explaining what happened the night Scotty died, she says ‘No’.
Ledger tells Kenna a while later that she would be served with a restraining order which Grace has petitioned against her.
Ledger and Kenna both get cozy
Ledger is also feeling jealous of the friendliness developing between Roman and Kenna.
Later Kenna and Roman go into his apartment - a small residential unit above the bar to borrow tables and chairs for a mother’s day lunch.
When Ledger sees Kenna and Roman coming out of Roman’s apartment he again feels jealous.
Roman tells Ledger if he really wanted Kenna gone he would have given her the required money by now.
Ledger warns Roman to stay within his limits about the subject but also realizes that deep down he wants Kenna to stay around.
Kenna overhears this conversation between Ledger and Roman and asks Ledger why did he warn Roman to stay careful.
Ledger admits that he wants Kenna to meet her daughter Diem but at the same time is worried about convincing Patrick and Grace about it.
In the spur of the moment, they start making out again but Kenna stops it.
Kenna texts Ledger asking her to meet him. When Ledger meets her, she tells him that she has been served with the restraining order at work which was embarrassing for her.
Ledger feels sad for Kenna. He tried talking with Landrys’ about allowing Kenna to see Diem but they are adamant against it.
He knows if he pushed too hard, Landrys’ would cut him out of Diem’s life too.
Ledger thinks more on how upset and angry the Landrys’ will be if they find out what’s cooking between him and Kenna.
He gets worried and thus asks Kenna if she wants the money to leave the town.
If yes then he will just give it to her rather than her working at the bar and earning it. Kenna eventually agrees to accept the money and leave.
When Ledger takes her home, he asks her about Scotty’s death. They end up talking about Scotty’s death then.
Kenna confesses that she wouldn’t have pled guilty if she knew that she was pregnant. Also, Ledger apologises to her for saying terrible things to her initially about her presence not being good for Diem in any way.
One thing leads to another and they start kissing eventually which leads to making love.
The next morning when Ledger goes back to his house, Patrick and Diem are wondering where he was the whole night.
Diem asks him about her mother and he assures her that he will give her mother some flowers.
As a result, he shows up with some flowers at Kenna’s apartment.
He also asks her the truth about the night Scotty died as it will help him put Kenna’s side of story in front of Patrick and Grace.
The truth about Scotty’s death
Kenna reads out of the letter to Ledger that she and Scotty drove to the lake and while driving back she took the wheel.
Their car hit the gravel which caused it to spin into a ditch where it stopped upside down.
Kenna saw Scotty not moving, there was blood everywhere, she found her stuck in her seat too.
Kenna got out somehow but she couldn’t find the phones of any of them so she walked towards the highway where she lost her sense of direction.
Nobody stopped for her because she was covered in blood.
Thus, Kenna went to her apartment and passed out.
She woke up with a pool of blood next to her head only to find that Scotty had been alive all this time when she assumed he was dead.
Scotty’s arm was injured badly and there was little to no flow of blood which is why she thought he was dead, however, he was still breathing.
Her heart broke at the knowledge of the truth and she became dejected.
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Kenna was so dejected that she couldn’t even post bail, she pleaded guilty even when her lawyer asked her not to do so.
During this time, she got to know about her pregnancy. She got five years of conviction by the court.
Ledger acknowledges to Kenna that she has lost a lot in her life, he also thinks about how badly she has been treated so far.
Kenna feels that Ledger is the only one who acknowledged what she has been through. They then kiss and fool around that is when Ledger’s parents arrive.
Ledger introduces her as Nicole to his parents. But later Ledger’s mom tells him that they had recognized her already as Kenna, when she arrived at the bar weeks ago.
Ledger’s mother warns him to be careful but also thinks that there might be something good about Kenna which is why her son is with her.
Ledger meets Kenna that night, they have sex again.
Later he tells her that he should let Landrys’ know about their relationship before the situation goes drastically wrong.
Landrys' are mad at Ledger
The next morning when Ledger goes home, Patrick confronts him.
Patrick tells Ledger that he saw Ledger’s truck parked outside Kenna’s apartment that morning and asks him if he is sleeping with her.
Patrick punches Ledger in the face when he tries to defend her. He attacks him again but Ledger’s father separates them.
Roman then takes Ledger to the hospital where he gets stitches.
Later he visits Kenna. She tells him that she has been promoted at work but in her apartment, she sees Ledger’s injured face.
Ledger narrates everything to Kenna hearing which she decides to leave as she doesn’t want to be the reason for the separation between Ledger and his loved ones.
Kenna admits that she can’t see Diem anyway because of the restraining order so if she gets some money she will leave.
Ledger, though frustrated and anxious, promises Kenna that he will let Diem know how much her mother loves her.
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