More than six years after being committed, Anne is recommended for release to a halfway house. She moves to a facility in Saratoga, where she will stay for a year under the care of young doctor who uses their sessions to explore Anne’s past. Off medication, she feels more stable and more confident. She no longer feels apart from her past. She wonders if despite all the conflicting diagnoses she received during her stay (paranoia, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder) maybe her problem was far simpler: Maybe she never recovered from the trauma of the stillborn baby or maybe, she thinks darkly, she is “very, very mean” (207). 

Anne takes a job, for which she is overqualified, at a nearby assisted living facility. Although happy at work, she still replays the night of the shooting. She remembers that she took a sleeping pill. She remembers a fight with Brian, when she confronted him about wanting to move out to abandon her and Peter (he’d squirreled away travel brochures from South Carolina). She remembers moving a chair to reach the gun from the kitchen cabinet. She cannot figure out why her husband went upstairs and left her there in her rage.

She withdraws enough money from her long-dormant bank account to purchase a used car. A year goes by. Her therapy works. Anne moves into her own studio apartment. Living alone now, Anne often thinks about Peter. She hires a private detective to track down her son. It takes the detective only two days to find Peter.

Meanwhile, Francis wrestles with the implications of what had become a full-blown affair with Joan Kavanaugh. Making love with Joan frees him from the wreck he has become: “He felt young and strong and completely unconnected to the person Lena had been fussing over for so many years” (216). The affair does not last. When Lena goes to the doctor’s office with a persistent cold, she is diagnosed with cancer. While she is undergoing surgery, Francis runs into Joan while he and the girls are getting coffee at a deli near the hospital. He feels only shame. Joan knows about the cancer diagnosis and asks what will happen to the kids. Francis says nothing and slinks away.

While Lena has surgery, Kate tells her father about receiving the letter from Peter. Francis flatly tells her not to see him. Later, when Lena is completing her chemotherapy and radiation treatments, she confronts Francis about Joan. Francis stammers and hesitates, telling Lena what she wanted to know. “In a million years,” she tells him, “no matter what, I never ever would have done that to you” (226).

Kate and Peter meet in a bar in New York City. Even as Kate notices how heavily Peter drinks, the two renew their friendship. They agree not to talk about the shooting, deciding it is the past. Over the next several months, they phone often and meet regularly, often spending the night in Kate’s dorm. They fight only once over Anne and the shooting; Kate has not forgiven Anne. She suggests Anne shot her father simply because Anne hated her. Peter assures her it was more complicated.

After graduation, Kate gets a job as a research technician in a crime lab in Queens. Peter, with a degree in history, returns to live with his uncle and works in the ironworks factory with Uncle George. George cannot believe Peter is involved with the daughter of the woman who shot his brother; Peter argues that the shooting happened to their parents, not to them. When George finally meets Kate and helps her move into her new apartment, the two become fast friends.

Peter reveals to George that he thinks about becoming a cop. Although he passes the written test, he stumbles when answering questions about both his father and his mother during the psychological fitness interview. Exasperated, he declares, “Their histories don’t matter, only mine matters” (253). Kate and Peter drive to Gillam to ask Francis to put in a good word for Peter. He cautions his daughter that Peter’s history speaks for itself, that she is throwing her life away. She assures her father that she and Peter are in love, but Francis says love isn’t enough. Reluctantly, he agrees to help Peter get the job.

Even as Peter and Kate start to live together, Kate feels guilty. She has not told Peter how often she has glimpsed Anne in the city. One evening, when she sees Anne sitting on a bench across from the bakery where she shops, Kate decides to confront the woman. She asks what she wants. Anne says only a chance to talk to her son. Kate coldly tells her to stay away, that Peter is not interested in her.