Frankie enters the Big House, a sprawling stone farmhouse with added wings that include six fireplaces, a library, and a ballroom. She follows classical ballet music to the sitting room, where Mimi sits smoking in a black caftan and a raven-curled wig. When Frankie teases her that she was supposed to quit smoking, Mimi retorts that Frankie was “supposed to be married” (54).

Mimi asks how Frankie is feeling, noting that having life plans change is difficult—she knows this herself, having been a principal dancer with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens before marrying a lumber baron and moving to rural Ontario. Frankie admits that her life feels ruined. Mimi advises taking things one day at a time and declares that everything passes, adding that she never thought Nate was right for Frankie.

They reminisce about childhood afternoons spent playing at the Big House and dressing in Mimi’s old costumes. Frankie says that no one knows her better than George. Both women admit that they miss George constantly, and Mimi tells Frankie that she has a surprise for her.

Frankie walks to the pool, which Mimi installed when Frankie and George were nine. She dives in and recalls countless childhood hours swimming and drinking grape soda, but after only a few laps, she realizes that she lacks her former stamina. She dries off and settles on a lounger with Michael Smith’s cookbook Farm, Fire & Feast.

The cookbook stirs a familiar yearning. Before burning out as a chef, Frankie traveled the world through cookbooks—she loved the ones that combined food with a sense of place, though she hasn’t read one in a long time. She photographs her feet and the view, sending them to Aurora with a dismissive comment about Tofino.

Frankie reflects on the seasonal beauty of Old Stone Road that she couldn’t appreciate as a young girl dreaming of distant adventures. During her twenties, she worked her way up to a sous-chef position at a prestigious restaurant. One night, a customer reduced a server to tears over an overcooked steak, and Frankie slapped a raw sirloin onto his plate and quit. When Nate entered her life, she wanted a calm, uneventful life, suppressing her inner fire. Now, she desperately wants adventure again. She closes her eyes and imagines that she’s 14, waiting for George to bring her grape soda. While dozing, she hears a soda can opening and a familiar low laugh.

Frankie opens her eyes to George silhouetted by the sun, holding out a soda. She leaps up and hugs him tightly, realizing that George is Mimi’s surprise. He has been traveling through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Cuba for a series he’s writing about mangrove restoration, and he has a new haircut, new cologne, and tortoiseshell glasses. She teases him about his makeover. She removes his smudged glasses, cleans them, and returns them to his face.

George tells her she looks terrible. Stung, Frankie insists that she’s fine and tells him not to treat her like a broken faucet or pity her. George says he doesn’t pity her; he pities her ex for losing her. Frankie lashes out, accusing him of abandoning her and alluding to their fight at Christmas. George apologizes for Christmas, and she can tell he means it. She wonders if they even know each other anymore, though she immediately rejects the thought. She has never found words to tell him how much he means to her or how much she fears losing him.

George announces that he, too, is desperate for an adventure and proposes that they run away to Tofino for her honeymoon, noting that she owes him one since they never got to go on one after their own childhood wedding. Frankie recognizes this as a gift—a chance for adventure and to repair their friendship—and agrees immediately. George admits that he had prepared a whole speech. She asks if it involved saying he was right about Nate, and he gently says it did not.

The narrative shifts to a flashback to seven months earlier. On Christmas Day, Frankie prepared to announce her engagement at the family dinner. She had planned to tell George the previous night during their annual viewing of Little Women but lost her nerve. Fearing George’s his reaction and hoping that a family audience would ensure restraint, she decided to announce to everyone at once.

After dinner began, Frankie announced her engagement. Silence followed. Her mother congratulated her, her father questioned whether it was too soon, her brother Moby awkwardly offered congratulations, Mimi cursed in French, and George remained silent, staring at her. When she pressed him, he said under his breath that she didn’t want to hear his thoughts. She insisted she did. George stood abruptly, thanked her mother, and prepared to leave. As he exited, Frankie called him an “asshole.”

She followed him outside into the snowy field. Under the bright moon, George told her she was making a huge mistake, marrying someone who didn’t know her. Frankie argued that Nate knew her, though she privately acknowledged that she had only shown him a contained version of herself. George said that she acted subdued around Nate, unlike her real self. When Frankie asked him to be happy for her, he said he couldn’t when she was with someone who made her smaller, quieter, and dull. He insisted that he thought the world of her but that she barely knew Nate.

George sounded defeated and stepped away when Frankie reached for him. He said he needed space, or he would say something he’d regret. She begged him to stay and fight it out with her, but he walked away, disappearing beyond the hedge.

Two weeks after the Christmas confrontation, Frankie emailed George. She apologized for calling him an “asshole” and for not privately telling him about the engagement, explaining that she feared his reaction. She hoped that if George got to know Nate better, he might feel differently, and she asked him to be her best man at the wedding.

Two days later, George replied. He wrote that he should be the one apologizing and reaffirmed his promise to be her best friend no matter what. He accepted her request, writing that he would be honored to be her best man.