Bernadette tries to reconcile herself to the rule about silence, taking solace in her day-to-day work. She notes a complaint from a uniform company that shirts were missing from their last order, and a complaint from a hotel service that other clothes were not returned. She looks forward to the visit from the library bookmobile, though Sister Rotrude insists on approving the girls’ book selections. This is also when Bernadette goes to confession with Sister Rotrude.

Bernadette is dismayed when the door to the confession booth is barred and she is locked in. When she is finally freed, the bookmobile driver reports that her vehicle is gone. The nuns discover that six girls are missing: Mairin O’Hara, Angela Denny, Helen Mei, Denise Curran, Janice Dunn, and Kay Collins. Bernadette prays for the girls, then realizes that money is missing from the reliquary.

Mairin drives the library bookmobile away from the Home. For a while they drive along, singing. Kay becomes frightened and upset, and Mairin doesn’t know where she is going. When police spot them, Mairin suggests they ditch the van and run. Mairin runs as far as she can. She realizes they didn’t have time to divide up the money, which she left behind. Cold, afraid, and desperate, she finds Flynn’s dime in her shoe.

An excerpt from the Buffalo Evening News of August 21st, 1969, reports that six youths have escaped from the Good Shepherd Refuge. Three were apprehended and taken to a police station, where one subsequently escaped. The other three remain at large. The library’s bookmobile was recovered undamaged.

Mairin finds a phone booth. Afraid that her mother and Colm will just make her go back to the Home, she calls Flynn. He promises to come get her. While she waits for him, Mairin reads a copy of Time magazine that reports on the moon landing. 

Flynn drives up in his produce truck, and Mairin reflects that at last she feels safe for the first time in a year. Flynn gives her something to eat and takes her to Heyday Farm. Mairin is greeted by a woman named Saffron and told she can stay with them if she helps out. Mairin stands in a field of flowers and feels an enormous sense of relief.

Mairin feels older and harder after her experience. She wants to rediscover her own identity. When she looks at those who come and go from the commune, she realizes, “there were all kinds of ways to be wayward. And all kinds of ways to be lost” (246). 

Mairin works hard at the commune, though others subscribe more to the habits of free love, drug use, and leisure. She enjoys growing things on the farm and learning. Once, when cops come on a drug raid, Mairin is terrified. She tells them her name is Ruth Shepherd. Fiona comes to visit. She reports that she is thinking about college. She tells Mairin about giving birth and then giving away her baby, saying the baby “will always haunt me. I’ll always wonder about her” (251).

Flynn visits often, and Mairin feels drawn to him but also reserved. She wishes Jax, the man who owns the farm, would do more with upkeep. Jax says he’ll sell her the place if Mairin can earn the money. On the Fourth of July, she goes to Niagara Falls, but no one is there. She begins taking college courses and finds Flynn in her class.

Mairin visits her mother to ask for her birth certificate so she can get her driver’s license. She feels wary about returning home, but her mother embraces her. She says Colm is gone and Liam is being sent home from Vietnam after becoming ill with malaria. Her mother finally reveals that, when she was 17, she got pregnant with a boy she was not allowed to marry. She went to the Magdalen Hospital in Limerick and had the baby there. She learned the baby was adopted by a couple in Buffalo and came to the US to try to locate the child.

In the fall of 1971, Mairin greets Liam as he returns home. Her brother was impacted by the war but says that he would like to go to college and become a doctor. She and Liam discover a file noting that their mother is entitled to a settlement from the power company due to their father’s death.

Mairin goes to the Falls every Fourth of July. In 1972, she sees more protests against the war in Vietnam. Colm comes back to the house, saying he’s ready to take Deirdre back. Mairin and Liam realize he must have heard about the settlement money she is receiving, and they insist that he leave.

Deirdre gets an annulment, granted because she cannot have children with Colm, and is finally free of him. In 1973, Mairin goes to the Falls with Flynn and Fiona. She enjoys her job working for Mr. Eisman, her former employer, and she enjoys the simmer of attraction with Flynn. She runs into Kevin Doyle, who is back from Vietnam and planning to become a priest.

The next year, Angela finds Mairin at the falls. They hug and catch up on each other’s lives. Angela asks Roy and Shirley Barrett to take their picture, and their little girl runs into the frame for a moment. Angela is studying to be a librarian. She took the laundry money from the van and went to her friend Tanya’s. Mairin says that, at the orchard, she tries to give jobs to girls who are in trouble, so they don’t have to go to the Good Shepherd. Mairin thinks, “it was both painful and gratifying to connect with Angela” because they had both gone through similar experiences (274).

Mairin begins a romantic relationship with Flynn. He gets a loan and buys Heyday Farm. They marry in the summer of 1975 and work the farm together. Mairin continues to hire girls in need of shelter. She and Angela stay in touch and wonder what happened to the others. Flynn renames their place “Wayward Farm.”