Esther is at the Virginia Avenue Hospital Tent and the entire staff is working over Florence’s body. Esther is in shock as she watches the entire staff take turns giving Florence back compressions. After an hour, the surgeon asks the lifeguard to stop. He places Florence’s arms by her side and announces her time of death.

Abe Roth, who runs the Jewish funeral home, and several other men come to take Florence’s body away. Esther protests. She doesn’t want her daughter’s body taken away and is uncomfortable with the idea of women she barely knows, the Chevra Kadisha, or women who care for the deceased, washing her daughter’s body. Esther also resists the idea of Abe saying the Vidui, a prayer of atonement, because her daughter is only 20 and has nothing to atone for. Her husband, Joseph, asks Abe to say the prayers and joins him. Esther eventually also whispers the prayers.

Esther and Joseph wait on a sofa in the funeral home and speak with their rabbi, Levy, while the Chevra Kadisha perform the Taharah—the washing and dressing of Florence’s body. The rabbi offers to leave a shomer, someone who guards the body at night, but Joseph insists that he will sit with Florence’s body.

Esther is angry that the rabbi forgot that both her parents are dead and that Fannie is expecting a child again after losing an infant the past year. Joseph and Esther want to keep Florence’s death a secret from Fannie until the baby is born, so they refuse a public funeral and a shiva, a time of community mourning. Esther also makes sure that Florence’s death is kept out of the papers.

The rabbi drops Esther and Joseph off at their house. Stuart, who Esther sees has been crying, is waiting under the streetlamp. Esther reflects that she never liked the friendship between Stuart and Florence because boys from wealthy white families like his go to Ivy League schools with antisemitic quotas. Stuart’s father also refuses Jewish guests at his hotel, the Covington Hotel. Furthermore, while Joseph taught Florence to swim, Stuart pushed her to swim faster and farther and encouraged her to apply to Wellesley, where she could participate in swim competitions. Esther wonders whether Florence would still be alive if not for him.

Stuart asks Esther why Florence went out swimming by herself. He would have followed her. Esther is not ready to admit Florence acted rashly. Stuart asks if he can attend Florence’s funeral. Esther hesitates because she feels like it is unfair for him to attend when Fannie can’t. However, she ultimately tells him the funeral will be at Beth Kehillah. She asks Stuart how many people know about Florence’s death and tells him that they are trying to keep Florence’s death a secret from Fannie to protect her baby. Stuart agrees to talk to the other lifeguards about this.

Esther goes to Gussie and Anna’s room and finds Anna with her arms wrapped around Gussie. Esther doesn’t like feeling indebted to Anna, who gathered all of the family’s things, took Gussie back to the apartment, and comforted her after Florence’s death. Esther reflects on the previous fall, when she failed to stop Joseph from bringing Anna to the United States. Anna is the daughter of Inez, a woman he grew up with in Hungary but never mentioned in their 29 years of marriage. Inez wrote Joseph about how her family’s citizenship was revoked when Hitler came to power; she wanted Anna to get out of Germany before things got worse. Joseph worked tirelessly to secure Anna a spot at a US university, get her student visa approved, and host her. Esther found Joseph’s effort strange and remains jealous of Inez, whom Joseph refuses to talk about.

The next morning Esther is waiting outside the office of the hospital superintendent, Nellie McLoughlin. McLoughlin invites her into the office, but Esther has a panic attack as she tries to talk about Florence’s death. After Esther composes herself, she manages to tell McLoughlin that Florence died yesterday and bursts out crying as she realizes she will have to continue telling people this. McLoughlin agrees that the news threatens Fannie’s pregnancy and makes a plan to ensure Fannie does not find out the news.

Joseph arrives at home an hour before the burial, pale and exhausted from standing guard all night. Esther notices the shabby suit that Isaac, Fannie’s husband, is wearing and wonders why he asked so few questions and demanded so few answers about Florence’s death despite knowing Florence since she was 12. He reacted only when Esther told him her plan to keep Florence’s death a secret from Fannie. After some convincing, he agreed as long as he himself could tell Fannie everything after the baby’s birth.

Esther covers the mirrors with sheets. Before covering the mirror in her own room, she looks at her reflection; though she has always looked young, she now feels all of her 49 years. She thinks about how Jews cover their mirrors during shiva to prevent such shallow thoughts.

Though Anna wants to go to the funeral, Esther asks Anna to stay with Gussie. When the rabbi arrives, he performs the Kriah, the tearing of clothes in mourning. Gussie wants to participate in the ceremony.

The funeral party is small, and Rabbi Levy helps carry the casket because Esther doesn’t want Stuart, who is not Jewish, to participate. Esther looks around the cemetery and thinks about her and Joseph’s refusal to have a funeral for Fannie and Isaac’s infant. She knew that Fannie needed to have another baby and not wallow in the loss. She wonders if Isaac agreed.

Esther and Joseph are too overcome by grief to speak, but Stuart volunteers. Stuart begins to praise Florence, but Esther interrupts. When the rabbi asks if she would rather he say a few words, Esther says there is nothing to say. They bury Florence.

Fannie wakes up to a kiss on her forehead from Esther. Esther asks Fannie about how she likes her new room. Fannie likes the window and floral curtains but was surprised when Dorothy, her nurse, told her she was moving. Esther seems nervous when she hears about Dorothy, who went to school with Florence. Fannie tells Esther all about Dorothy fawning over Florence, but Esther is staring out the window, and Fannie isn’t sure if her mother is listening.

Fannie asks about Florence, and Esther tells her that Florence is swimming with Stuart. Fannie reflects on an argument she recently had with Florence: She wanted Florence to postpone her Channel swim so that she could be there when Fannie’s baby arrives. Fannie tells Esther that she thinks Florence doesn’t want to have anything to do with her. Esther points out that Florence loves Gussie and will love Fannie’s next baby too. Fannie begins to cry, feeling like she’s missing out on everything going on outside the hospital. Esther comforts her and assures her that everything can wait.

Esther leaves in the evening, and Fannie is relieved that she will be alone until at least the next afternoon. Her stay at the hospital has been a reprieve from domestic life and given her the opportunity to read, but she feels like she has no control over her life. She also worries that the hospital stay won’t prevent another premature birth. She decides that one thing she can do right now is settle her argument with Florence. Their relationship has always been strained despite Fannie’s attempts to be a good older sister; seven years separate them, so they are always at drastically different life stages. They also had different experiences with their parents. When Fannie was born, Joseph and Esther were struggling to get their bakery going; Fannie spent much of her childhood watched by bakers and baker’s assistants. Florence arrived when the bakery was already doing well, so Esther was able to baby Florence. Fannie knows that if Esther has sided with Florence, as she seemingly has, the only way to resolve the dispute is to settle it with Florence directly.

Fannie writes Florence a letter saying that Florence’s comparison of her goal of swimming the English Channel to Fannie’s goal of delivering a healthy baby upset her. However, Fannie also says that she wants Florence to swim the Channel and asks her to visit. She asks Dorothy for a stamp, but Dorothy forgets to bring her one. When Fannie goes to find a stamp herself, she overhears the nurses discussing some unspecified tragedy.

The nurses offer Fannie a cigarette and urge her to sit down and read about the quintuplets that were born a week ago. As she does, Fannie thinks about how many other mothers whom she knows have lost babies. Bette, a nurse, invites Fannie to help her feed a crying baby on the way back to Fannie’s room. It is the first time Fannie has held a baby since her son, Hyram, died.

The next morning, Isaac visits. He mentions that her father could afford a private room, and Fannie cringes and thinks about how money is always a matter of tension between him and her family because Isaac grew up poor. He started working for Joseph temporarily, but his role expanded alongside the business, and he began to manage the trucks delivering all of the bread. Fannie wondered if it was bad for Isaac to become more beholden to and resentful of Joseph, but she also didn’t understand why Isaac insisted on saving money to start his own business rather than waiting for her father to retire and taking over the bakery. Isaac then lost his savings in the stock market crash of 1929 and ended up $2,500 in debt. It took Isaac several days to ask Joseph for an interest-free loan to bail him out. Joseph agreed. For three years after that, Isaac refused to have another baby with Fannie despite having a stable job.

Fannie says that she can’t find the room’s radio. McLoughlin interrupts to remind Isaac that visiting hours start at 9:00 am; it is currently 7:30 am. Fannie tries to get Isaac to ask about the radio, gives up, and asks McLoughlin about it herself despite being intimidated by her. McLoughlin says not all rooms have radios; it’s an extra charge that Fannie’s father wasn’t willing to pay.

Fannie and Isaac don’t say much after Mcloughlin leaves. Eventually, Fannie jokingly reminds him that he probably has to go. He tries to kiss her on the cheek, but she pulls him in for a long kiss, remembering their old spark. She then asks him to deliver the letter she wrote to Florence.

Joseph arrives at Wischafter’s Beach Concessions on the morning after Florence’s burial and rents a beach chair. He takes the chair to his office in his bakery. After putting up a “Do Not Disturb” sign on his door, he lights a candle and sets up the beach chair as a makeshift shiva chair to begin his seven days of mourning.

On the third day, he concludes that keeping Florence’s death from Fannie is prudent but that there is a small list of people that need to be informed, such as Clementine Dirkin, Florence’s swim coach at Wellesley, and Bill Burgess, who was supposed to be her coach across the English Channel. Joseph hopes to find Burgess’s address in Florence’s notebook, titled FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS THE ENGLISH CHANNEL, where she recorded her diet, training regimen, and sleep schedule.

In the evening, Joseph taps on the door of Florence’s and Fannie’s room, which Anna is now staying in. Anna sits up and puts her shoes on, and Joseph regrets unintentionally making her feel uncomfortable. He asks Anna if she has seen Florence’s swimming notebook, and Anna pulls it out of the bedside table drawer. He takes it and reads the only words that are still legible: “FLORENCE ADLER SWIMS.” He reads the first few pages slowly and sees an entry from the previous July: “Replaced my morning meal of toast with a banana. Felt like I could have swum forever” (56). He stops, overwhelmed with emotion, and hands the book to Anna, asking her to find Burgess’s address.

Joseph admires Anna’s seriousness and tells her she reminds him of her mother. He wonders how much Inez told Anna about him; he knows that Anna at least read the affidavit he wrote in support of her parents’ immigration. He tells Anna about riding a bike with Inez when they were nine or ten but does to tell her about Inez asking him to marry her when they were 17: He was about to leave for the US and promised to send for her once he collected enough money. They sent letters back and forth, but these abruptly stopped once he met Esther.

Joseph reassures Anna that if the affidavit doesn’t work, he will try other avenues. However, he knows that bringing her parents to the US will be difficult because their assets are frozen and they are not relatives. He wonders how honest he should be with Anna. Anna thanks him for his help, and he thinks to himself that the task is a welcome distraction. Anna says that she can’t find the address in the book and hands it back to him, saying that Stuart will know how to reach Burgess.

When Joseph arrives at his office on Friday morning, Stuart is there. Joseph invites him to sit and wonders how much Stuart has slept since Florence’s death. Stuart asks about Fannie, and Joseph says he hasn’t visited; he hasn’t been in a hospital since he was an ambulance driver during World War I. Stuart agrees to write to Burgess, and Joseph tries to tell Stuart that Florence’s death is not his fault.

Joseph wonders how he would have felt if he had lost Esther when he met her in 1904. His English was poor, and he was afraid to talk to her when he saw her at Chorney’s, the hotel he was working at. He gave her extra eggs at breakfast and Boston cream pie at dinner. He was surprised when she left him a note asking to meet while her parents were away. They took a walk along the boardwalk, and he fell in love with Esther. A week later she returned to Philadelphia, and a year later she mustered the courage to tell her parents they were getting married. Joseph decides he doesn’t want to know what Stuart and Florence meant to each other; knowing she experienced love would not make her loss any easier to bear.

Joseph and Stuart talk about when Florence first learned to swim. Joseph’s secretary interrupts, announcing that Anna is there to see Joseph.

Isaac sits at his office desk and thinks about how Joseph’s return to work was not as normal as Esther had instructed. Isaac is especially curious about Anna’s visit on Friday. She has almost never visited the plant, but on Friday she was in Joseph’s office for 15 minutes and came out visibly relieved. When she left, Isaac saw that Stuart was waiting for her on the street.

Isaac has trouble figuring Anna out both because of her thick accent and because she seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He finds it strange that Joseph would board Anna just because he grew up with her mother. Isaac sympathizes with the German Jews, but he grew up in Russia, where pogroms were commonplace. Anna is in the US because she was barred from attending college in Germany, but Isaac doesn’t consider this “an international crisis” (72).

Isaac doesn’t want to spend the weekend in Esther and Joseph’s living room, mourning without Fannie. However, he hates visiting the hospital almost as much as he hates visiting his in-laws because he feels that Fannie sees him more clearly for who he is in a place concerned with life and death. He thinks about the letter Fannie gave him and doubts whether keeping Florence’s death from Fannie is right. However, he also remembers that he convinced Fannie to go on a bumper-car ride last year; Hyram was born prematurely the next day. He tried to get absolution from Fannie, the doctor, and the nurse, but no one could be certain that the premature birth didn’t happen because of the bumper-car bump.

Joseph interrupts Isaac’s thoughts to say he is going home early. Isaac asks to borrow Joseph’s car on Saturday to see his father; he plans to take Gussie. Joseph is hesitant but agrees that it would be good for Gussie to get out of the house. On Saturday, Isaac and Gussie drive to Alliance, the town he grew up in. He feels good driving into town because most men in the town don’t own a car. The two of them wait for Isaac’s father outside of the schul, or synagogue. Isaac asks Gussie not to mention anything to Joseph about Isaac’s father’s “fall”—the pretext for the visit, but also a lie.

Isaac’s father comes out of the temple he and the other men of the town built. Isaac’s father refuses a ride because it is the sabbath, and he asks Gussie to walk home with him. Isaac notices the difference between his father’s affection for Gussie and his own experience growing up as a boy pressured to work on the family’s failing farm. His parents moved to Alliance in 1887, motivated by the Return to the Soil Movement, but as a former teacher, his father knew nothing about farming. Most of the Return to the Soil Movement participants failed and began supplementing their income by working for nearby garment factories. Isaac was born 13 years later, the youngest of 12 children, all of whom moved away. When Isaac turned 20, he decided to leave as well, but he did so without telling his father because he couldn’t bear to witness his disappointment.

Isaac bought a ticket for Miami, where he had heard that the best way to earn money was to become a binder boy, someone who collected down payments on undeveloped land. He went to a real estate agent and lied about attending college. The agent hired him, and prices kept going up: There was a race to buy up undeveloped land in the area, and Isaac and the other binder boys were earning good commissions on every sale. By 1925 the market broke, and Isaac went back home, his mother having died in the interim. In Atlantic City, he met Fannie and began working at Joseph’s bakery.

Isaac and his father sit on the porch. His father tells him that he heard about Florence from Gussie. Isaac never thought to ask his father about the losses of his own children before Hyram died, and he never ended up asking after. They celebrate the end of sabbath, eat dinner, and send Gussie to sleep. After doing the dishes, Isaac brings out rugelach, a bottle of sherry, and two small glasses. Isaac tells his father he is developing a side project: A man he worked with in Florida called Isaac about inexpensive land that he could flip. Isaac tries to bring his father in on the deal, and the next morning his father gives him $300. Isaac takes the money, both worried and excited about getting other investors. He and Gussie leave. Gussie asks why the baby can’t know about Florence’s death.

A week has passed since Florence died, and Stuart has continued to take the rescue boat out each morning at six o’clock. Stuart was Florence’s main guide in thinking about and preparing for swimming the Channel. Though Florence wanted to swim it in 1933, he convinced her to train for an additional year. She met Stuart most mornings in the summer, when she was home from Wellesley. He would follow her in the rescue boat while she swam; he enjoyed rowing back with her because she was more talkative after her swim. Now the boat feels empty, and he wonders whether he wants to return to shore.

On his way to breakfast, Stuart runs into the Adlers standing at the entrance of Steel Pier. They are on a walk to mark the end of shiva, and he joins them. He tries to make small talk and ruminates about whether Florence would still be alive if he had been on lifeguard duty. Anna privately reveals to him that Inez and Joseph were engaged; she thinks that sometimes when Joseph looks at her, he is trying to see her mother. They all stop in front of the James Candy Company, where a woman asks Esther about her daughters. Gussie tries to interrupt with the truth, but Anna stops her. Gussie is upset because she thought that Florence’s death was only a secret they were keeping from her mother. Anna and Stuart convince Gussie that everyone is part of a secret club. Stuart creates a secret society ritual involving taffy, and they are all “initiated” into the club, which they name the “Florence Adler Swims Forever Society.” After Stuart leaves for work, he turns to see Anna running after him. She asks him to teach her to swim.

Stuart arrives late to lifeguard duty. Robert, the other lifeguard, tells him Stuart’s father has called him to the hotel. Stuart is frustrated but then spots someone drowning. Within a minute, the lifeguards save the drowning man. Stuart takes pride in saving the man’s life and delays going to see his father until the next day.

Stuart typically doesn’t take money from his father because it comes with strings. After Stuart’s grandfather died, Stuart’s father expanded the hotel, then a resort cottage, to become the tallest building in Atlantic City. Now called “The Covington,” the hotel began courting wealthy, white, and Protestant guests; Stuart’s father does not believe that Jewish or Black people should stay there. It was Florence who pointed out to Stuart that there were no Jewish names in the guestbook.

Stuart arrives at his father’s office. His father chastises him for being late and offers some sympathy for Florence’s death. They fight about his father reassigning Stuart to a post where Florence didn’t swim, and Stuart’s father asserts that it’s time for him to stop working at the beach.

Three weeks after Florence’s death, Anna arrives at the Knife and Fork Inn to meet Joseph, as well as Eli Hirsch of the Atlantic City chapter of the American Jewish Committee. Eli tells her that she was lucky to have her visa paperwork processed so quickly: Every Jew wants to get out of Germany, and US officials are worried that immigrants will overrun the US. She says that she applied to the US because her mother knew Joseph and because she spoke English.

Anna and Joseph explain to Eli that her parents’ visa application was denied even though he promised to give them $40 a week to ensure they would not be dependent on the state. He couldn’t offer them a job because the consulate does not want American jobs going to foreigners. Eli suggests that they might try getting an affidavit from another person and setting up a substantial bank account for Anna’s parents. He says the committee will write a letter and try to solicit one from Congressman Bacharach. Before they leave, Eli tells Anna that the fastest way to get her parents visas would be for her to marry an American.

Anna feels lightheaded from the drink and the conversation when she gets back to the apartment. Gussie gives her a letter from Stuart, asking to meet the following evening at six o’clock for swim lessons. Anna worries what Esther would think of Stuart, a possible suitor of Florence, sending Anna letters. She asks Gussie to keep the letter secret.

Anna waits for everyone to go to sleep and then, as Gussie suggested, looks through Florence’s drawers for a bathing suit. She pulls out an old black bathing suit that she hopes Stuart won’t recognize. Before trying on the bathing suit, she studies her naked body in the mirror. She is not as curvy as she was in high school, having lost weight due to worrying about the visa process, immigrating, her parents, and now Florence.

When she leaves for the beach the next day, Anna is very nervous. She easily spots Stuart, who is taller than everyone, and is surprised that they are going to a pool. Stuart says it is easier to learn there, as he can more easily see her strokes. They go to the Covington Hotel, and Anna wonders in shock whether this is the hotel that Florence said belonged to Stuart’s father. She is nervous about being there, but Stuart reassures her.

When they get to the pool, Anna is reluctant to take off her dress because she’s uncomfortable standing in front of Stuart in a bathing suit and is also terrified of the water. Stuart reassures her, saying he will only teach her how to float today. He puts his hand under her back to support her, and after a few hours, Stuart deems her proficient at floating. They get out of the pool as it is closing, and Stuart’s father arrives. Anna is embarrassed and also notices Stuart’s tension, as well as Stuart’s challenging tone when he reveals that Anna is in the US to go to school because German universities won’t accept anyone Jewish. When Stuart’s father leaves, Anna tells Stuart that he seems angry or frustrated. He explains that he doesn’t want to run the hotel like his father and that his father keeps a mistress in the south tower.

Anna’s least favorite part of learning to swim is sneaking back into the Adlers’ house after her lessons. She has had four lessons, and every time she feels like she must lie to Esther. She does not feel like she has the right to mourn Florence, just like she does not feel she has the right to be homesick given that the Adlers—particularly Florence—have done so much for her. Anna remembers that when she learned about Germany seizing the money of Jews who left Germany, Florence comforted her by kissing her on the cheek. Then Florence brushed her mouth against Anna’s, and Anna returned the kiss.