On Thanksgiving, Virginia spends the morning cooking a full holiday dinner for Finn, Xavier, and Ruby.

During the meal, Ruby casually mentions Virginia’s chemotherapy, shocking Finn, who says he never received the letter Virginia sent him. A tense exchange follows in which Virginia defends her silence and Finn mourns being shut out of his sister’s life. Ruby then announces she is quitting college entirely, using Finn’s decision to leave Juilliard as justification for her choice. Surprising herself, Virginia gives Ruby an ultimatum: Ruby must find a job or enroll somewhere by January. She then retreats to her room feeling relief.

Going through her mail, Virginia finds an unsigned, undated note demanding she leave the Clara Darden watercolor at Grand Central’s Lost and Found by noon Friday or face consequences. She calls Dennis for advice, only to reach a woman who identifies herself as his wife. Virginia realizes that Dennis lied about being divorced. Stunned, Virginia wanders into Bemelmans Bar, where she learns from Ryan the bartender that Ruby has already taken a job there. His easy conversation about New York and his own life in Dublin brings her relief.

The morning after Thanksgiving, Virginia apologizes to Finn for keeping her cancer diagnosis from him. He responds by saying he loves her, which the reserved O’Connor siblings have never told each other before.

When Ruby returns from her father’s, Virginia takes her for a walk in Central Park. Ruby reveals that what prompted her withdrawal from Sarah Lawrence was overhearing suitemates call her a “dimwit” and say they hoped to replace her. Virginia shares her own experience of overreaching after her divorce, and the two reconcile. Virginia proposes paying Ruby to photograph Grand Central before it can be demolished, both as a show of support and as a way to preserve a record of the terminal.

Virginia then goes to the Grand Central Lost and Found with the painting but cannot bring herself to hand it over. She keeps her appointment with the Lorettes first. On the way to the Lorettes’ East Village brownstone, a gaunt man stops Virginia at knifepoint and demands the portfolio. She uses the Mace on him and runs to the Lorettes’ front steps.

Inside, Irving and his wife discuss Levon and Clara with Virginia. Irving calls Levon mercurial and brilliant while describing Clara as difficult and unyielding. His wife immediately challenges this double standard. The Lorettes confirm that Levon once intervened to keep Clara from being fired, and that Clara eventually vanished, rumored to have been on a train with Levon, though her body was never found.

Virginia presents her evidence: the letter “C” in the Clyde signature matches both the sketch on the reverse and Clara’s known Vogue signatures. The sketch is dated two years before Clyde’s 1931 exhibition, suggesting Clara Darden may be the artist known as Clyde. The Lorettes are convinced enough to contact their friend Sammy at the Museum of Modern Art, who agrees to examine the painting Monday morning. Because Virginia cannot take time off work, she leaves the painting with the Lorettes and arranges to call at lunch to hear their findings.

Clara, Levon, and Oliver travel to Eastport, Maine, for the Grand Central School of Art’s summer program. Oliver has been invited as poet-in-residence after one of his poems was accepted for publication. The three share a small cottage with Violet Foster, Mr. Lorette’s goddaughter and an aspiring actress from Los Angeles.

At a welcome dinner, Violet charms the table and captivates Levon, who engages her in playful theatrical challenges. That evening the group pairs off: Levon and Violet walking ahead, Clara and Oliver together.

The summer settles into a comfortable rhythm. Oliver grows popular with faculty and students, and receives praise from a distinguished critic for his published poem. Clara works each morning on an expressionist watercolor she calls The Siren, and she and Levon co-teach an outdoor painting class. Within weeks it becomes apparent that Levon and Violet are involved with one another. One night, Oliver proposes marriage to Clara in her room, and she accepts, immediately planning a European honeymoon, though silently dreading time away from work. Later, Oliver confesses he paid for his poem to be published by investing in the journal. Clara is moved by his vulnerability and reassures him it was the right decision.

On the last Saturday of the term, Clara finishes The Siren and begins to sign it. When Oliver worries that the painting could damage her career, he offers the name of the neighbor’s dog, Clyde, as an alternative. Clara, uncertain of the painting’s worth and of the risk of conflict between her experimental work and her professional work, signs it “Clyde.”

That evening at a beach bonfire, Clara feels jealous as she watches Levon with Violet. She slips away along the shore; Levon follows. He urges her to stop playing it safe and kisses her. She returns the kiss. When they break apart, she attempts to dismiss the moment, but looks up to find Oliver standing on the seawall. Oliver has seen everything. He runs back to camp, and by the time Clara returns, both he and Violet have disappeared.

The morning after the bonfire, Clara avoids Levon and struggles through her class. When she returns to the cottage, she finds Oliver at the kitchen table. She apologizes and tries to downplay the kiss, but Oliver is cold and furious: He accuses her of being perpetually under Levon’s influence and reveals he spent the night with Violet. Clara notes the hypocrisy, but Oliver ends their engagement. When she goes to retrieve The Siren, it is gone. Oliver then claims to have destroyed it in retaliation against her. Clara is left devastated; the painting had represented a new way of working. Oliver drives off with Violet, leaving Clara to finish the last week of classes alone.

When she gets back to New York, Clara buries herself in commercial work through the fall. Oliver marries Violet; they honeymoon in Paris. Soon, the stock market crash disrupts Clara’s life: Vogue does not renew her contract, her illustration class shrinks close to zero, and Mr. Lorette lays her off for the semester. Mr. Bianchi then drops Clara from the Studebaker account, reasoning that retaining the highest-paid woman artist looks wasteful during a crisis. He adds that he cannot fire another male employee with a family to support.

By October 1930, work has dried up entirely. Clara gives away her furniture, sells her dresses, and moves into a cheap room at the Hotel 17 on East Seventeenth Street. The Grand Central School of Art shuts its doors, Levon and Clara fall out of touch, and Clara’s letters to her parents in Arizona return undelivered. Stripped of her career and her world, she decide to make the best of her circumstances.