The novel jumps forward ten years later to June 2023. Ruth arrives on Block Island, where her truck has just died. She learns from a mechanic that it is totaled, leaving her with only $200 and no transportation. She has driven all night from her job in Maine, having learned from Diana’s nephew, Charlie, that Diana, who has been Ruth’s mentor and surrogate mother in the intervening years, has died from a previously undisclosed lung cancer. Ruth didn’t make it to the hospital in time and is in a state of shock, consumed with guilt over their last conversation, which was a fight.

After buying a used bicycle, Ruth goes to Diana’s now-empty house. A phone call from Charlie prompts her to reflect on their own long, complicated, and undefined relationship. Jolted by the finality of Diana’s death and the regret of unspoken words, Ruth has a powerful realization that she is in love with Charlie. The chapter ends with Ruth’s grief-induced numbness being replaced by a new, urgent resolve: She will tell Charlie her true feelings when he arrives for Diana’s funeral at the end of the month.

At a summer solstice party at the cottage she shares with her best friend Lucy, Ruth feels restless and overwhelmed. She is actively suppressing her grief for Diana, whose funeral is the next day, and is tormented by the vulnerability of having privately resolved to confess her feelings to Charlie, still uncertain how he will respond. 

Haunted by a vivid memory of her first kiss with Charlie years ago, Ruth feels a desperate need for a physical distraction. She decides to pursue Louis, an old acquaintance, and invites him for a night swim. They leave the party for the beach, where they strip and swim naked. Submerging herself in the dark water gives Ruth a temporary release from her tension, and the chapter ends as she escapes into a physical encounter, kissing Louis in the ocean.

Ruth wakes up on Louis’s boat after a casual sexual encounter. The morning ferry horn signals the arrival of her father, Joel, prompting her to rush off the boat barefoot to meet him at the dock. Their reunion is awkward, with Joel commenting on her disheveled appearance. As they walk to a diner for breakfast, Ruth feels a mix of guilt over their distant relationship and concern for her father’s declining health. Joel confirms that Ruth will attend Diana’s funeral service later, even though Ruth has been dreading it. Her thoughts turn to Charlie. Just as she commits to confessing her feelings to him at the service, she receives a text from Charlie saying he also has something to tell her, which fills her with adrenaline.

While biking to Diana’s funeral service, Ruth rehearses what she will say to Charlie, clinging to hope inspired by his recent text. The journey prompts a series of memories about her relationship with Diana. Ruth recalls starting as Diana’s assistant and how their initially awkward dynamic blossomed after a trip to the beach where Diana encouraged Ruth’s interests and offered her a writing-assistance role. During this conversation, Diana said she didn’t think that Ruth’s mother, Maggie, was particularly artistic, adding that they weren’t actually all that close, though she offered to look for photos, saying there could be some somewhere in her house, which confused and disappointed Ruth.

Inspired by Diana’s mentorship, Ruth pursued writing in college and dreamed of an artistic life on Block Island. However, after graduating, the financial realities of working-class life, as her father Joel had warned, crushed this dream. She fell into a cycle of grueling restaurant work that left no time or energy for her art, leading her to resent writing and her circumstances. Returning to the present, Ruth pushes away memories of her last fight with Diana and focuses on seeing Charlie, admitting to herself that despite her anxiety, she is hoping he feels the same way about her.

Ruth arrives at Diana’s house for the memorial service being held on what would have been Diana’s 59th birthday. There, she reunites with Charlie and feels an overwhelming and urgent need to already confess her long-held love for him. After they share a meaningful hug and agree to speak later, Ruth feels certain he returns her feelings. 

During the service, which is hosted by Charlie’s mother, Lynn, Ruth feels increasingly like an outsider, a feeling that is briefly eased when Charlie acknowledges her special bond with Diana in his eulogy. Immediately following his speech, however, Lynn announces that Charlie is engaged to a woman named Nadia, and that they will be marrying at the house later that summer. Ruth’s shock and devastation is compounded when she overhears guests discussing Lynn’s plan to sell the property after the wedding. Enraged by this and the sight of Diana’s possessions already being cleared out, Ruth confronts Lynn. Lynn dismisses Ruth’s past with Charlie and then directly tells her that the family’s plans are none of her business, effectively banning her from the property. Humiliated, Ruth departs, feeling she is no longer welcome and is now an outsider.

Distracted and distraught after Diana’s funeral, Ruth is shocked when Charlie arrives with his fiancée, Nadia, as customers at the restaurant where Ruth works as a waitress. Ruth endures the awkward encounter of serving their table, where she is introduced as a friend of Diana’s. She feels insecure and aware of the class differences between herself and the couple. Ruth learns that Charlie and Nadia plan to stay on the island until their wedding to help with the arrangements of the ceremony and the sale. After they leave, Ruth is left with a widening sense of distance from Charlie, a momentary and self-protective thought that their closeness may have been circumstantial.

Shortly after, Louis arrives at the closed restaurant, explaining he came to check on her after the funeral. Initially annoyed, Ruth softens when she recalls his own past grief. He offers genuine sympathy, helps her close up the restaurant, and then casually mentions that he enjoyed their recent night together before departing. Ruth is left alone, blushing, in the empty restaurant.

Unable to sleep after seeing Charlie at the restaurant, Ruth investigates Nadia’s social media and finds she is a successful and charitable artist, which fuels Ruth’s jealousy and feelings of inadequacy. She climbs onto her roof, overwhelmed by a sense of dread and the realization that she has been aimless since her mother’s death, too afraid to rebuild her life. 

This feeling triggers two painful memories. First, she recalls her fight with Diana from the previous Christmas, where Diana criticized her for wasting her potential and said her mother would have wanted more for her, a conflict that now makes Ruth fear she failed Diana. Second, she relives the trauma of her mother Maggie’s battle with metastatic breast cancer, recalling her terrifying allergic reaction to chemo, the discovery of a brain metastasis, and her mother’s eventual decision to stop treatment. Crushed by the cumulative weight of losing her mother, Diana, and now Charlie, Ruth is terrified that her deep grief is a permanent state she will have to experience.

After avoiding her grief by working extra shifts, Ruth has a day off on what would have been Maggie’s birthday. Joel visits Ruth on the island. Their conversation is strained as Ruth confronts him about his health, and she reflects on the emotional distance between them. Joel reveals that he has decided to sell their family home and will be moving out in September. Ruth is angered by the news, feeling as though her last anchor to stability is being taken and that her father is once again running from the past.

After a tense goodbye, Ruth encounters Charlie at the ferry landing. He says he wanted to check on her and reveals his true purpose: to give her some items Diana left for her. Taking advantage of the fact that Lynn and Nadia are off-island, he offers Ruth time alone in the house. Interpreting his concern as pity, Ruth is initially hostile, but she ultimately agrees to go with him.

Charlie drives Ruth to Diana’s house, and they reminisce about a shared romantic memory. At the house, they look through Diana’s untouched studio, which leads to a brief, tense exchange about their mutual connection to her. Charlie then takes Ruth to her old bedroom, where a teal box that Diana left specifically for Ruth is waiting. Left alone, Ruth hesitates to open it, feeling it represents a sense of finality she cannot face. 

While in the bathroom, she discovers a piece of a broken condom inside her bikini bottoms from her recent encounter with Louis, and panics when she realizes it is too late for emergency contraception. Distraught by this revelation and overwhelmed by grief, Ruth decides not to open the box. Instead, she convinces Charlie to go to the beach with her. They leave the house together.

Ruth and Charlie hike a familiar path to a secluded beach. As they walk, Ruth brings up his engagement, and Charlie explains that he is at a different point in his life, feeling settled and ready for marriage and children. This is a revelation to Ruth, who feels directionless. She is shocked to learn Charlie met Nadia in September, around ten months earlier, and that he proposed in early June, right around the time of Diana’s death. This makes Ruth feel betrayed that he never once mentioned being in a serious relationship to her. 

At the beach, Ruth swims in the rough ocean and is frightened by a passing thought of letting the current pull her away. Back on the sand, her conversation with Charlie turns to their past and a near-intimate encounter they had on the same beach six years ago, which both admit to thinking about. Ruth invites Charlie closer, and he looms over her, inches from a kiss. He hesitates and then pulls away just as his phone begins to ring, leaving the moment unresolved.

Charlie and Ruth’s intimate moment on the beach is interrupted by a call from Nadia. Charlie lies about being alone, and the mood between him and Ruth becomes tense and distant. He rushes her off the beach, and they return to Diana’s house, where he retrieves the teal box and hands it to Ruth at the driveway. As Ruth bikes away, she has an awkward encounter with Nadia and Lynn, who see her leaving with the box. 

Alone, Ruth’s thoughts turn from the almost-kiss with Charlie to a growing fear that she might be pregnant from her earlier encounter with Louis. She considers the possibility of terminating the pregnancy, but recalls her childhood fear of eternal damnation that comes with abortion. She then receives a call from an editor at Vogue named Ethel, who reveals a secret Diana kept: Diana knew she was dying and arranged for Ruth to write a major profile on her life and work. Despite her self-doubt and grief, Ruth accepts the assignment, which has a tight deadline. When Ruth explains that Lynn has banned her from the property, Diana’s agent and Ethel intervene on her behalf. They discover Diana left written instructions ensuring Ruth would be granted access to her studio to write the article, forcing a reluctant Lynn to agree under strict conditions.