Due to Cadence’s relationship with Major Gilbert, she has no issues accessing Peaked Hill or his office. She sees the necklace and letter that Briar told her about. She also finds a photo of an attractive woman and a Nazi flag. The letter features the romantic French phrase, mon cheri (my dear), so Cadence grows suspicious.

Realizing Tyson is lying about Shelby, Briar runs away from him and toward her home. Margaret and Bess make Peter’s false ID card in the kitchen, and Briar warns them about Tyson, who’s pouring gasoline around the cottage. Moments later, he enters the kitchen, where he pours more gasoline while threatening them with the Luger.

Briar and Tyson have a tense interaction in which she learns that the SS ring belonged to Tyson’s father, and Mr. Schmidt took it from Tyson. Tyson didn’t kill Sandra, but Briar accuses him of killing Mr. Schmidt, which Tyson doesn’t deny. Tyson claims Hitler stands for the truth, and he threatens to throw a match on the gasoline if Briar doesn’t give him the tugboat with the negatives.

Peter appears, and Tyson threatens to shoot him if he doesn’t light a match. Briar gives Tyson the tugboat, but Tyson takes the match and drops it in the kitchen.

Cadence smells smoke as she returns home. Briar alerts her that Tyson is the spy and that he and Peter left for the U-boat. Remembering Briar’s analysis of the Jane Eyre fire scene, Cadence calls for salt and baking soda, and the four women manage to restrict the fire damage to the kitchen.

Briar and Cadence discover Peter at the boathouse. He refused to help Tyson take out the boat, so Tyson pointed the gun at him. Peter rushed him, took the gun, and killed him. Peter then explains his relationship with Tyson. Based on a description from the U-boat crew, Tyson found out about Peter and confronted him after the funeral, threatening to expose him if he did not return to Germany with Tyson. Tyson told Peter that Tyson’s father collected information on American war plans.

Peter and the four women work together to bury Tyson under a boulder on the hill. Peter, Cadence, and Briar dig the grave. Margaret affixes a chain to the large rock, and Bess drives the tractor to move the rock. Briar places the photo negatives in Tyson’s pocket.

Briar spots the U-boat, and Cadence reports it. She tells the Coast Guard that Briar was right all along. The Coast Guard takes action, as Briar hears their boats. She also sees and hears the mock explosions and gunfire from the practice invasion. Briar realizes that soon, they’ll be invading a beach in North Africa or France.

Cadence and the others clean up the burned kitchen as best they can. They commit to rebuilding it, and Margaret donates $100 to help. For comfort, Cadence rereads Leo Tolstoy’s epic novel Anna Karenina (1878). Cadence receives a letter from Major Gilbert, who explains that Greta is a married mother who helped him escape, so they stay in touch. Briar announces that Peter and Margaret eloped. Bess, too, is gone.

Bess drives to her tasteful home in Edgartown. She has morning sickness, swollen ankles, and trouble breathing. After Bess scolds Mrs. Stanhope for mistreating the domestic workers, she says she’ll return to her mother and never contact the Smith family again if her mother gives the Smith family $5,000. Mrs. Stanhope agrees, and she lets Bess say goodbye to Smiths. Lying, Bess tells Cadence that her mother found a Boston doctor who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. Bess lets Cadence believe that she’ll be back.

The next morning, the Burbank potatoes bloom, and the greater community drives to the farm and helps pull the profitable crop. Mrs. Stanhope arrives in her black limousine to pick up Bess. Cadence gives Bess the golden heart bracelet before Bess leaves.

The bank calls Cadence to alert her of the $5,000, and Cadence realizes what Bess did. Cadence visits Winnie’s home, which has an “East Indian” aesthetic. After discussing Tom’s death and her adventurous ex-husband, Winnie offers Cadence a job. Putnam wants Winnie to write travel books. Winnie will visit the places, manage the pictures, and write some text, which she’ll send to Cadence for editing. The job allows her to stay on the island and visit New York City as she pleases.

In the “Up-Island Happenings” column that ends the chapter, Cadence claims Margaret moved to Cleveland and will likely find a job as a pharmacist. Cadence reveals that she plans to travel back and forth between New York and the Vineyard, so this column will be her last.

Three years later, in 1945, the war ends. Briar narrates what has happened. Sandra’s house is now a coffee shop, and McManus works for the FBI in New York City. Shelby wasn’t heartbroken over Tyson and married a person from Cornell. Private Jeffers died while fighting the Japanese. Cadence sent numerous letters to Bess, but they came back “Return to Sender.” Bert the Barber is back, but the Sones remain absent.

The Smiths earned the island’s exclusive right to sell Burbank potatoes, and the family uses the money to become a dairy farm again. Major Gilbert got the family a lucrative dairy contract with the military.

One day, a nun, Sister Claire, visits the farm, accompanied by Tom. The Smiths are overjoyed to learn that he is alive. A nun in Dieppe, Sister Agnes, walked the coast after the battle looking for abandoned survivors like Tom.

As she listens to this story in 2016, Mari realizes that Mrs. Devereaux is Bess, which means Mari’s mother was Tom and Bess’s daughter. After Bess gave birth to a daughter—at which point Bess slipped her golden heart bracelet from Cadence onto the baby’s wrist—Mrs. Stanhope secretly put the baby up for adoption. She told Bess that the child had died. She then sent Bess to the Sorbonne to study painting. Fearful of causing harm to the Smiths, Bess didn’t contact them. Before Mrs. Stanhope died, she told Bess the truth about her daughter. Bess married a French person, but they divorced because Bess didn’t want to have another child. Bess and Briar each hired private detectives to find one another. After Briar died, Briar’s detective found Bess and alerted her that Briar had left Bess the farm.

Briar never married but lived peacefully with Tom at the increasingly profitable farm. Cadence and Major Gilbert married and lived in New York City. They didn’t have children.

The developers who want to buy the property claim that once Bess dies, the property should become public domain, allowing them to buy it cheaply. However, if a descendant claims the property, the land will likely be safe. Mari overcomes her self-doubt and commits to claiming and staying with the Smith farm.