One year after Catharine’s confrontation with her father, she and Linna are both 17. Catharine is increasingly focused and disciplined; Linna is restless, rebellious, and consumed by her attachment to Kent. After arriving at the treehouse one day after covering her mother’s chores—since her mother’s migraines have become debilitating—Catharine reaches for Linna’s notebook, and Linna snatches it away. Linna soon admits that she and Kent have been exchanging letters for months, a development Catharine missed entirely. Catharine reacts with contempt; Linna tells her that this is exactly why she kept it secret and accuses her of fearing “being left behind” or of “[t]hings changing” (84). Linna retaliates that Kent doesn’t see Catharine as a person at all, as he’s only interested in appeasing her father. Catharine flees down the ladder, twists her ankle upon landing, and limps home.

Lisa tends to the ankle and reveals that she has already seen Linna and Kent together at night. She tries to reassure Catharine by comparing the situation to her own experience when her older sister first had a boyfriend. Catharine responds with a cutting remark about her parents’ divorce. Her mother goes quiet. As Catharine turns out the light, Lisa says that “[b]eing a teenager is a monstrous thing,” while Catharine privately believes she herself is the “monster” (89).

The day after meeting Reese, Catharine spends 10 hours in the library researching him, working through his social-media history, early articles, and a college relationship. She frames the exercise as mirroring the research he has surely done on her and recalls her father’s principle: To get what you want from someone, you must understand them completely first. Her goal is to leverage Reese’s need for her story to get him to introduce her to his source, whom she suspects may be her sister, Linna.

Catharine also performs her habitual search for the author Marion Earl, which brings back the memory of Stella giving her a signed novel for Christmas. Initially, she saw herself in his writing, but she then realized that it also reminded her of Linna. With Reese’s research, his description of his source as a “storyteller,” and the new Earl memoir, it begins to seem truly possible that Earl is Linna.

About a week after their fight, Catharine and Linna reconcile during laundry duty—their lives are too intertwined for the rift to last. Linna insists that her relationship with Kent doesn’t change their friendship; Catharine privately disagrees. Linna also criticizes the farm as stagnant, questioning whether anything has genuinely improved in years.

Catharine recalls the farm’s more prosperous period, when the community reached nearly 35 people. A severe heat wave drove 10 members away in a single summer, and each departure seemed to intensify her father’s control. The moderation fasts evolved from temporary food restrictions into permanent ones as more and more foods were removed in the name of physical improvement. As each person left the farm, Catharine found herself privately satisfied to outlast them.

When Linna points out that the farm’s gardens produce little that the residents actually eat since most of the harvest is sold at local markets. To counter Linna’s restlessness, Catharine invokes Ben and Bertie, beloved elder community members who chose this life after years of disappointment elsewhere. Catharine then proposes her plan: She will get a driver’s license and will convince her father to allow her to do so by arguing that it will be a benefit for farm deliveries.

For Catharine and Reese’s second meeting, she wears a carefully chosen outfit and arrives at the bar 40 minutes late. Reese is already there working on his laptop; he orders coffee for her without asking. They agree to speak off the record, at Catharine’s insistence.

When Catharine begins describing her father’s unusual magnetism, comparing him favorably to the leaders typically featured in documentaries, Reese interrupts with a correction: Her father was never a professor, only a teaching assistant. The detail throws her, exposing a gap in her own knowledge and reminding her how much he has already gathered.

Their conversation is cut short when Stella walks in on her way to a blind date next door. Stella recognizes Reese’s name from the email he originally sent her and jokingly calls him “Cult Reese.” Catharine quickly improvises a cover: Reese had initially contacted the wrong person but turned out to be charming. After Stella leaves, Reese notes that Catharine’s closest friend knows nothing about her past. Catharine confirms this and then deflects when he asks whether anyone does.

As Catharine prepares to leave, her library book slips from her bag and lands on Reese’s tote, apparently unnoticed by him.

Catharine and Linna spend weeks rehearsing how Catharine should approach her father about a driver’s license. When she chooses a favorable moment and offers to help more with farm logistics, her father proposes the license himself: She could handle deliveries and store runs, and having family members be seen in town might deflect the curiosity of their nearest neighbors. Lisa is assigned to accompany her during lessons.

For about a month, her mother teaches her to drive while her father watches from the barn. Catharine approaches every lesson with visible seriousness, making clear that this is about contribution rather than personal freedom. During one session when her father is absent, Lisa is noticeably more energized than she has been in months. She reveals that the truck once belonged to her and that she named it after Patsy Cline.

Lisa then gently presses Catharine on whether the license is really about wanting freedom. Catharine deflects, insisting that everything she needs is on the farm. Her mother wonders aloud whether Catharine’s father would truly allow them to leave and tells Catharine that the license at least gives her “options.” Catharine grows defensive, accusing her mother of no longer caring about the farm since she no longer even tries the healing regimens. As Lisa gets out of the car, she quietly responds that all she’s “ever fucking done” is “try” and then closes the door (124).

Stella arrives at Catharine’s apartment Saturday afternoon to debrief. Privately, Catharine concludes that Reese’s correction about the teaching assistant was a calculated assertion of control, not a casual observation.

While wandering the apartment, Stella picks up a framed photograph: It shows Catharine and Linna as children in paint-covered shirts, flanked by two older adults. Catharine passes it off as an art-camp photo, calling Linna a barely remembered old friend and identifying Ben and Bertie as counselors. The lie stings. She had retrieved the photo from storage after her first meeting with Reese and reframed it, feeling like the act restore something in her.

After Stella leaves, Reese calls. He found Catharine’s phone number from a personalized leather bookmark tucked inside the dropped library book and proposes meeting in two hours to return it. He hangs up before she responds. The call leaves her anxious: He made no mention of the book’s author, Earl, and she can’t determine whether he has connected it to his source or is simply staying guarded. She also reflects that when she moved to the city, she took her last name from Ben and Bertie, becoming Catharine West.

When Catharine arrives at the barn for her final driving lesson, no one is there. She eventually finds her mother bedridden and visibly worse. Lisa tells her that her father will take her out instead.

Catharine goes to her father’s cottage—understood by everyone on the farm to be off limits without a direct invitation. He answers the door disheveled and irritable and then leads her into the main building and opens a storage closet in the dining hall that now holds almost nothing but a scale on the floor. Her father explains that he’s testing a new method for tracking discipline.

Before Catharine can fully process what is being asked, Rhonda, a community member, steps forward and volunteers to go first. She steps onto the scale, recites her number aloud at Catharine’s father’s instruction, and visibly falters as he records it and mutters that it’s worse than expected. Catharine steps on next, deeply uneasy—she has no way of knowing what number he’s looking for. When the figure appears, she reads it aloud. Her father responds immediately: He calls it “excellent” and calls her “beautiful.” The relief is overwhelming. She interprets his praise as proof that she’s disciplined. He closes his notebook and goes with her to drive.