Lila heads for home but returns to the cabin to give the boy her coat. When she heads back to Gilead once more, she gets lost in thought. She remembers the day she looked for Doll in the snow. She thinks about their life with Doane, Marcelle, and Mellie. Then she thinks about what she could do with the money she’d saved if she hadn’t left it for the boy. She would go to a diner or buy herself something nice. Back in Gilead, she returns to an empty house and realizes how foreign her life is. None of it makes sense to her without John’s presence. She sits in her own room with the door locked until he returns. She feels a wave of relief just seeing him again.

Lila and John spend the evening sitting together and talking about their days. Lila admits that she returned to the cabin and tells John about the boy she met there. John admits that he went to the cabin looking for Lila when someone in town informed him they’d seen Lila out there. Worried about her health given the cold weather, John headed to the cabin and found the boy sleeping under her coat. Lila tells him what happened and begs him not to hurt the boy as he isn’t “going to hurt anybody” (163). Through tears, she begs him to help the boy, too. John promises to consider.

In the morning, John returns to the cabin but the boy is no longer there. He apologizes to Lila for scaring him off. A disappointed Lila insists that John doesn’t really know her at all. John again urges her to open up to him. Lila says she didn’t know the boy but felt that she understood him.

Lila wishes she could go out in search of the boy and help him, but decides against wandering in the cold because of the baby. She spends the day alone in her room with her Bible. While reading, she anticipates John’s return home for lunch and feels comforted. However, her mind wanders to her childhood and past and she despairs once more. Suddenly she can’t make sense of things anymore. She wonders what her experiences mean and who she really is now. Her mind wanders to the day she found Doll covered in blood. Doll told her she’d killed a man who could have been her father, but couldn’t be sure. Lila helped clean Doll up, who’d also been injured in the encounter. Afterward, Lila’s dress was covered in blood.

Doll was apprehended for killing the man, but wouldn’t associate with Lila thereafter. Lila tried to defend her to the authorities but Doll refused to acknowledge she knew Lila at all. A heartbroken Lila left town, still wearing the blood-stained dress. She encountered a woman who assumed she had given herself an abortion and recommended she go and find a woman in St. Louis who could help her. In St. Louis, Lila went to the given address and met the mistress of a local brothel. The woman took pity on her and took Lila in. Lila wanted to go by the name Doll, but took the name Rosie instead because none of the other girls there had that name. Life at the brothel was strange, but Lila gradually adjusted. The hardest part was feigning happiness and interest in the men.

Remembering these things, Lila tells the baby she won’t ever let it know about this part of her life. Finally, John returns home and kisses her. They talk for a while about the baby but Lila is overcome by emotion and struggles to engage. She tries telling him about all the unnamable feelings she is experiencing, but John isn’t sure what to say. She imagines what it’d be like to tell him her full story, finally admitting how strange it still is for her to be living this life. John hopes she’ll someday feel “a little more at home” (187).

Lila closes herself back in her room when John returns to the church to prepare for a funeral. Memories from St. Louis flood her once more. She remembers the challenges of being there. She was grateful for the roof over her head but disliked all the men except Mack. She thought he might favor her, too, but soon discovered that he pitied her as much as any of the girls.

Finally, Lila made a plan for herself. She knew that anyone who got pregnant at the brothel wasn’t allowed to keep their baby. She decided that if one of the other girls got pregnant she would just take their baby and leave. She guessed that no one would mind, as they sent the babies to the orphanage anyway. When another girl named Missy got pregnant, Lila decided to bide her time and take the baby and leave St. Louis for good. The plan gave her hope. The only issue was that she had given her mistress her knife for safekeeping when she first arrived in St. Louis, and would need it back before leaving town.