Did I Just Finish?

I was just trudging through the end of Chapter 52, when I thought of a great way to end the sequence. Without giving much anything away, Oriane finds Penelope and Bridgett after the climax. Oriane has all the proper responses, given everything--and I mean everything--that's happened up to that moment. Literally, the chapter ends with Oriane closing a door. Yet, there is so much built in to closing that door.

There was a dark note in that sequence. That's not a spoiler since I think I've been fairly clear from day one that this was going to be a fairly dark story. Once I hit save on that chapter, I had a jolting thought: "Did I just finish Vitamin F?"

The more I think about it, I'm saying no. There are a small handful of unanswered questions as far as the plot goes, what happened to Oriane's sister being a big one. There's also something to deal with that I call main character identification. If Bridgett is the main character of this book, then I don't think it's fair to the readers to have her be largely absent from the last four chapters of a 52-chapter book. But if she's absent for four chapters only to have chapter 53 be only about her, then have chapter 54 be predominantly about her, then I think there's a better chance of readers being satisfied with the entire book.

Thinking about it again, Chapter 52 is about answering all the side questions. It's where I make the Brotherhood of Life seem like real bastards. It's one of those occasions where two characters I didn't think I was going to use more than once decide to show back up again.

Besides, I can't see there being about thirty pages after the last major scene with Bridgett. Like I said before, I think doing that would leave readers dissatisfied with the book as a whole if I did that.