Hugh “Humpty” Dumpton, visits Meredith Downs for the first time in nearly 15 years, accompanied by his wife Coral, who helps him from the car into his wheelchair. Despite their long estrangement they greet each other warmly.

Inside, they reminisce about school days. Humpty explains he met Coral when she was his rehabilitation nurse. The depth of feeling between the couple unsettles Matt, awakening a longing in him. They play cricket on the old pitch. Alone with Matt afterward, Humpty thanks him for telling Lorna about his suicidal thoughts. When Matt confesses he feels trapped with no escape, Humpty tells Matt he would relive his accident to meet Coral, and advises that “everyone’s life’s a prison” (264) and that the challenge is finding freedom within that life.

The Bachelors’ and Spinsters’ Ball is held in the shearing shed at Bilby Rock Station. Steve Glew arrives with Bonnie, who wears a navy satin gown she last wore to her engagement party to a different man. Matt arrives with Rhonda Kippin, a girl once close to Warren. Madge Swincer had asked Matt to help manage the event.

As the night progresses, Matt breaks up minor disputes. A drunk woman, Angie Bellaqua, another of Warren’s former girlfriends, kisses him enthusiastically, and Matt reflects on Warren’s ease with women compared to his own awkwardness. Outside, he sees Steve Glew dancing with Bonnie. Watching her laugh and move in the moonlight, he feels a combination of jealousy and deep longing. Driven by Humpty’s advice, alcohol, moonlight, and years of frustration, he crosses the paddock and asks Bonnie to dance.

Driving home from Bilby Rock the next morning, Matt feels transformed. On the seat beside him is a handkerchief with a note from Bonnie saying she owes him a dinner jacket. He recalls their conversation by the creek before dawn and how natural everything felt.

Approaching Top Shed, he notices sheep crowded around an empty trough and stops to clear three dead crows blocking the flow. As he finishes, the shearing shed catches his eye, and the landscape again feels like a prison. Back at the silent homestead, he realizes nothing has truly changed. He stubs his toe on a roller skate in Andy’s room—formerly Rose’s—and the last traces of happiness drain away.

In the shower, suddenly angry, he turns the taps on full. Under the cold deluge, his sensations of Bonnie wash away and he cries.

Myrtle Eedle attends the funeral of Dorothy Borrett on her fifty-second birthday, reflecting that at fifty-one, she will remain childless. During the hymn, she recalls her first funeral in November 1935 when she was eighteen, which she used as cover to sob for her own secret loss. She thinks about her husband Clive and how she never told him about giving up a baby. By the time she realized he would have loved her anyway, too much time had passed, and the secret seemed to have power over their marriage.

As the congregation files out, Lorna gives her an understanding smile. Matt walks behind, his face unreadable. Myrtle thinks of Rose MacBride, torn from her newborn. She waits until the church empties before slipping out a side door.

Days after the ball, Bonnie reflects on the night with Matt and his silence, wondering if he regrets what happened. She drives to Meredith Downs to return his dinner jacket. Andy insists Matt take Bonnie to see the sunset from Wallaby Ridge.

At the ridge, Bonnie admires the view and asks if this is his special place. An awkward silence falls, and Bonnie confronts Matt, asking if she must always pursue him. Matt hears his sister Rosie’s voice urging him to live his life. He kisses her, lowering them both onto the smooth stone ledge in the fading light.

Later, Lorna sits on the verandah thinking about Humpty’s happiness and hoping for the same for Matt. She recalls a conversation with Phil about the kids marrying before his death, and wonders how Bonnie MacBride sounds and how she would manage with sheep.

In Wanderrie Creek, Sergeant Rundle discovers statistical irregularities in old police files. In a neglected storage room, he finds a cabinet and opens the first file: the death of Bert Ashbrook. Bert had died of botulism at 42, leaving his wife Betsy and four children. The previous policeman, Wisheart, had known Bert was a violent drunk who regularly beat Betsy. She had begun making special batches of preserved vegetables, deliberately under-sterilizing them to create a risk of botulism. After Bert died from a tainted meal, Wisheart investigated, saw Betsy’s injuries and her children’s fear, advised her to discard the jars, apply for a pension, and told her she wouldn’t hear from him again.

In the present, Rundle visits Betsy. Though he has no proof, she immediately confesses. Rundle tells her domestic violence doesn’t carry a death penalty—then arrests her and instructs her to pack a bag.

On a mild winter day, Bonnie waits at the homestead for Matt. Andy shows her family photographs, and she notices a small mark near his eyebrow, calling it a dueling scar. That evening, Andy asks Lorna how he acquired the scar. She says she thinks it came from a fall when he was very small. Matt also claims not to remember.

In early June, Andy questions Lorna about family history for a School of the Air project. The Pastoralists’ Heritage Project requires students to trace their history back to the earliest settlers and include a section from their parents about how they met and the day the child was born—with completed projects exhibited at the Town Hall the following February.

That evening, Lorna and Matt worry privately about what Andy might discover if he investigates his father and how Rose died. Matt suggests Andy skip the parent section, but Lorna points out he’s excited about it. They agree to think of something later. Lorna warns Matt that cigarettes will kill him. He replies that he deserves it.

Andy watches Pete Peachey butcher a kangaroo while Matt and others install a wireless aerial. Andy asks Pete about his family tree and whether he knew Grandpa Phil and Rose. Pete says there’s nothing he could tell Andy that Matt or Lorna couldn’t.

Andy asks Pete about the scar near his eyebrow. Pete, who had carried infant Andy from the mine, falters slightly at the sight of it before telling Andy that a forgotten detail is a free pass to create his own story. He explains that hearing one butcher-bird song doesn’t mean you know the whole bird, and, likewise, no person is just one thing.

A letter from Harry Badger suggests Andy ask Bonnie for help finding his father. The narrative reveals Andy has begun secretly searching station diaries from the year he was born to find clues about his father.

Nearly three months after sending a parcel, Myrtle has been nervously awaiting a response. She had sent the package to a nursing home in Sydney, where she gave birth to a daughter in March 1935. She had seen her newborn only briefly but told the nurse to name her Lorraine Lee, after her favorite rose. The package contains a gift: a doll.

Myrtle’s letter explained she has thought of her daughter every day and wanted to assure her she was loved. Her father was the manager of a music shop; Myrtle was 17 when she discovered he had a wife and children. She signed the letter as Mother.

One winter day, Bonnie takes Andy searching for tektites. They get to talking about families and his project. Then, Bonnie mentions her descent from Nathaniel Brinley and notes how when women marry, they “lose their name, and become invisible” (300). Realizing he should have his father’s surname, not MacBride, Andy tells Bonnie his father is “ominous” (meaning anonymous) and unloads his questions about the man, explaining why he can’t ask Lorna or Matt. He asks Bonnie to help find his father.

Bonnie says she’ll speak with Matt, but Andy makes her promise not to tell. After returning Andy home, she tells Matt she knows Andy’s father is unknown. Matt relaxes slightly and says Rose never told anyone who the father was, and that if the father could have claimed Andy, he surely would have. Bonnie kisses him and assures him this doesn’t change her feelings.

Following Betsy Ashbrook’s arrest, newspapers carry stories about “Botulinum Betsy.” Both Lorna and Myrtle feel sympathy for Betsy and her children, now in homes. Betsy’s is the first of several old cases Rundle has reopened—among them a vicar who stole from the collection plate and became a bishop, a man who married a 14-year-old, and another whose suspicious car crash produced a life insurance payout that saved his family’s station. In each instance, Wisheart had buried the case, allowing families to recover. However, Rundle believes Wisheart overstepped his authority, so he works methodically through the files. It is unknown when he will reach Rose MacBride’s file.

On a September spring day, Bonnie and Matt have a picnic by a creek. Bonnie tries to get Matt to open up, explaining she wants no secrets between them. She tells him her previous fiancé had been cheating all along; when confronted, he claimed she had never inquired about another girl. That’s why she asks Matt to share now.

Matt tells her the past should stay in the past. He reassures her he has no other girlfriend and would never cheat. Bonnie presses for a promise of no secrets. Terrified, Matt replies evasively that he has “no secret girlfriends” (308).

While Clive is out, Myrtle retrieves a parcel containing a formal letter from the new director of the Harbourside Adoption Service, formerly Camperdown Nursing Home, citing strict confidentiality and refusing to forward her materials to her daughter. Her letter and parcel are returned. Myrtle buries the box containing the doll behind a rosebush, cutting up both letters and mixing them into the soil. She decides will mourn at a funeral the next day and turns her attention to Rose MacBride and her son.

The following day, Sergeant Rundle stops Myrtle on the street and asks about the MacBrides, specifically Rose’s child and the father’s identity. Myrtle knows nothing but offers to inform him if she learns anything.

In a cave, Matt holds a light while Bonnie chips rock samples. She raises Andy’s father again, arguing that times are changing and old scandals no longer carry the same weight. She tells the story of her cousin Bernice, the product of an affair, eventually welcomed into the family after her mother revealed the truth on her deathbed. Bonnie pushes Matt about Andy’s father, and Matt becomes angry, telling her this is different, and she knows nothing about his sister. He strides out of the cave.

In the nights that follow, Matt has recurring nightmares of Andy dying. Each dream follows the same pattern: grief, overwhelming relief at being freed from a burden, and then shame when he wakes. Unable to sleep, he sits on the verandah smoking, contemplating what Bonnie could be allowed to know about Rose’s death. He decides that it is his mother’s choice, but he won’t be the one to reveal the truth and make Andy vulnerable.

While alone, Andy explores the Fruit Crates containing Rose’s belongings. In her knitting bag, he finds a tiny yellow bootee—though he doesn’t realize it’s the only thing Rose ever made for him. Then, he discovers an envelope containing a letter dated April 27, 1958, addressed to Rose from someone named Miles. The letter apologizes for poor behavior and for hurting her, promising never to repeat the action or speak of what happened. Below the signature, Rose wrote about memory and sketched a rose. Andy believes the letter is from his father.

Days later, while in Monty’s Shed, Andy asks Matt about Miles. He learns that Miles Beaumont, nicknamed “Omo,” was a former trainee manager and the son of an English lord. Matt describes Miles as handsome and almost mentions that Rosie had feelings for him. Andy asks if Miles is dead. Matt silently hopes not and tells Andy that Miles is probably back in England.

Sergeant Rundle’s questions about Rose MacBride have piqued Myrtle’s curiosity. When Pete Peachey comes to the post office, she asks about Rose’s death. Pete confirms it was a fall in an old mine shaft but tells her nothing else.

Days later, Andy is at the post office mailing a parcel. Myrtle gives him a package for Pete that arrived from Paris and asks whether Pete has a wife or girlfriend. Walking to the car, Andy’s mind races: his mother knew Pete, and Pete made a target for Rose that’s in her Fruit Crate. He realizes Pete must go on his List of potential fathers.

The next day, Andy questions Matt about Pete’s history. Matt confirms Pete arrived just after the war and was present when Rose died, and explains Pete was in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp and does not discuss his experience. This intensifies Andy’s curiosity, and he begins observing Pete closely for scars or family resemblances.