After Marcella uses her ticket, she experiences initial euphoria followed by severe depression and a panic attack. She asks her mother, Sylvia, how to live with the knowledge that she can no longer undo terrible events. Sylvia reveals she used her own ticket on something minor, claiming she never experienced a tragedy worthy of taking back. When Marcella asks why Sylvia didn’t use it to bring Marcella’s father back, Sylvia brushes off the question.

Against Sylvia’s wishes, Marcella resolves to tell Lauren about the ticket, believing her daughter should live with full awareness and be armed against tragedy. The next day, Marcella and Sylvia sit Lauren down in her childhood bedroom and tell her about their family’s ability. Afterward, Marcella feels lighter, not realizing she has transferred the burden to her daughter along with the gift.

Two weeks after arriving in New York, Lauren describes her city life with Leo as idyllic. She feels powerful and omniscient after resetting the world and views her decision to stop fertility treatments as the shedding of an old version of herself. During a phone call, her father tells her that Stone returned to Malibu because Bonnie wasn’t doing well, but Stone has talked her into a new medical trial. Lauren interprets this as proof that her reset benefited everyone, believing Stone used the time he’d previously spent with Lauren to convince Bonnie to do the trial.

Lauren and Leo celebrate their anniversary with dinner at Gramercy Tavern. Leo toasts to their next chapter, saying he has never loved her more. Lauren recalls how miserable their last anniversary was, spent in pain from fertility treatments, and reflects that happiness requires knowing what to hold on to and what to let go.

Six weeks into Lauren’s New York trip, Lauren and Leo decide to stay through Christmas and consider moving to New York permanently. One morning, Lauren’s mother calls, and from her tone, Lauren immediately knows something is wrong. Marcella tells her that Dave had a heart attack and is in the hospital. She asks Lauren to come home.

Lauren books the next flight and texts Leo. As her Uber leaves the airport, Lauren receives a call from Stone. She hesitates, then answers.

At Cedars-Sinai, Marcella paces outside Dave’s room while Sylvia sits inside with him. The doctors have explained that Dave’s heart is failing: The bypasses from his earlier surgery have closed, and the small capillaries keeping him alive are now compromised. Surgery on these tiny vessels is difficult.

Marcella recalls his heart attack—watching Dave sway and fall while climbing the stairs from the beach, calling for an ambulance, and realizing in that moment she had no ticket left to save him.

In the hospital, Marcella resents both Sylvia and Lauren for the relative ease of their lives. She thinks about Lauren’s unused ticket and admits to herself that she called her daughter because Lauren possesses the one thing Marcella no longer has: the ability to save Dave.

Lauren answers Stone’s call on the way to the hospital. He says he heard about Dave’s heart attack and wanted to check on her. When Lauren asks about Bonnie, Stone tells her she’s taken a turn for the worse. The doctors don’t think she will live much longer. Stone says he went to the Greek recently, thought of Lauren, and wanted to hear her voice. She wonders if he somehow remembers the night that never happened, but pushes the thought away, reasoning that something cannot be a memory if it never occurred.

Stone mentions that Dave usually comes down to the beach in the mornings with coffee and towels for surfers, and that he’d noticed his absence. Lauren advises Stone to give Bonnie morphine, even if she doesn’t want it, and briefly wonders if she inadvertently forced Bonnie into experiencing two deaths.

Lauren arrives at Cedars-Sinai and waits in the lobby until Marcella comes down for her. In the elevator, Marcella explains that the doctors say a decision must be made—Dave’s heart is weak and not getting enough blood.

Lauren finds Dave awake in his room, connected to wires and machines. He tells her the doctors want to perform another open-heart surgery, but he refuses. As Marcella tries to calm him, she gives Lauren a brief, flickering look. Lauren immediately understands: Her mother is asking her to use her ticket. The realization hits that her ticket is already gone. Marcella leads Lauren out of the room, telling Dave they’ll be right back.

In the hospital cafeteria, Lauren bluntly tells Marcella that she used her ticket. Marcella grows angry, demanding to know how Lauren could do such a thing. Lauren recognizes her own rage mirrored in her mother’s—the anger she’s always felt at being second place to Dave’s safety. Lauren responds that the ticket was hers to use, and no one told her Dave would need it. Internally, she admits she always knew she was saving it for him but chose to save her marriage instead.

Lauren accuses Marcella of assuming the ticket would be available when she needed it even though the ticket belongs to Lauren. Marcella’s anger dissolves into sadness—she says she hoped Dave would never need it. When Lauren says she’s staying in the cafeteria, Marcella tells her to come upstairs with her.

Sylvia, now in her nineties and approaching the end of her life, recalls a woman in Morocco telling her that being alive is everything, and anything more is just a bonus.

She recounts her family history: her mother, Irina, emigrated from Europe as a child, built a shoe repair business in Brooklyn, and married Morris, a childhood acquaintance who served in the war and died at 52 from liver cancer. Sylvia reflects that she never asked her mother whether she regretted using her ticket, because longing for things to be different misses the point of life. She catalogs her own mistakes and adventures—abandoning her baby to live with a rock star in Finland, three affairs with married men, two arrests, marching with Martin Luther King Jr., and breaking her leg after being thrown from a horse. She ends by asking the reader if they see where this is going.

Marcella leads Lauren out of the hospital toward the parking structure. She remembers driving to this same hospital 37 years ago while in labor with Lauren, and reflects on her difficult relationship with Sylvia, who was frequently absent in her childhood. When Lauren was born, Marcella swore to be a more present parent.

As they reach the parking structure, Marcella reflects that she didn’t bring Lauren here to tell her about the day she was born, but to tell her about the day she died.

Lauren confesses that she and Leo spent three years unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant despite extensive fertility treatments. She unleashes her anger at Marcella for never noticing the profound struggle in her daughter’s life.

Marcella says she had no idea. Lauren confesses that she cheated on Leo with Stone because she felt broken, and that she used the ticket to erase it. The reset allowed them to reclaim their marriage and become happy again. She tells her mother that the ticket gave her a second chance. Marcella begins to cry—tears Lauren has rarely seen. She places her hands on Lauren’s shoulders, looks into her eyes, and says that it has all been a second chance.