Daphne is preparing to leave Leda’s apartment when Leda objects that she has heard only the part of the story she already knew. Daphne offers a single-sentence summary—“We lived”—and heads for the subway. On the ride to Grand Central, she reflects that it wasn’t Eddie but her mother’s third husband, Lucas, who marked the end of her childhood. Her mother had championed Ekker’s positivity self-help books at Houghton Mifflin; they became major bestsellers, and she eventually married him. The Ekker empire eventually declined during the AIDS crisis, when the word “positive” took on a different public meaning, but her mother’s sound financial management ensured that all four children finished college without debt.

Jonathan, a recently retired hospital administrator 17 years Daphne’s senior, meets her on the platform when her train arrives. Over sushi at home, he again wishes that she would join him in Wisconsin, where he and his sister, Bea, are clearing out their recently deceased mother’s house. Daphne declines: She stopped flying after her father, Buddy, died and hasn’t boarded a plane since. Jonathan pushes back, invoking his late first wife, Candy, who died at 40 with travel dreams unrealized. Daphne suggests that he take Bea instead if he wants to travel. Jonathan considers the idea. That night, Daphne and Jonathan have sex, and Daphne drives him to the airport the following morning.

While driving home from the airport, Daphne falls into memories of the week following the accident. Leda was on one hospital floor recovering from her appendectomy, while Eddie was on another after ankle surgery; Daphne stayed with neighbors and ran notes between them. During her visits, she felt especially close to Eddie, who was working on a manuscript from his hospital bed. Four days after the accident, Daphne came home to find her mother sobbing at the kitchen table, announcing that she was divorcing Eddie because he had nearly killed Daphne. Daphne resisted her mother’s explanation but eventually came to believe that she was responsible for what had happened. Now, for the first time, she notices a four-day gap in the timeline: Her mother had been grateful that everyone was alive, and then something shifted. Instead of calling her mother, she calls Eddie.

Eddie immediately recognizes Daphne’s voice. He recalls Buddy with affection—a man better suited to the sea than to fatherhood—and is stunned to learn that Daphne’s mother eventually married Lucas Ekker, whom he remembers unfavorably from their shared days at Houghton. He then invites Daphne to accompany him the following evening to the 50th wedding anniversary of his closest friends, Skip and Polly Hotalling, at the Century Club—Polly requires exactly 50 couples, and his original companion has a cold. Daphne accepts. Eddie asks her not to tell her mother beforehand. She also decides to say nothing to Jonathan, reasoning that he already has enough on his mind and that the evening is unlikely to matter to him.

That evening at Leda’s apartment, Leda styles Daphne’s hair while they talk with Leda’s 17-year-old son, Henry Ha. They discuss the four-day gap between the accident and Abigail’s decision to divorce Eddie. When Eddie steps out of the elevator in a tuxedo carrying lilies of the valley in a small vase, Leda and Daphne are moved to see him again. He presents the vase—which had belonged to his mother—as a gift for Leda and tells Daphne that he has something for her as well, to give her later. Over drinks, he mentions that Skip Hotalling was his roommate at Yale. After Eddie and the others move to admire a painting, Henry tells Daphne that he believes Eddie is gay, suggesting that this may explain the divorce.

In the car on the way to the party, Daphne and Eddie revive a childhood ritual, singing the Whiffenpoofs song he had taught her and Leda as children. At the Century Club, Eddie introduces Daphne to the Hotallings as his daughter; Polly immediately recognizes her as Daphne Zabriskie. During dinner, Daphne is seated beside Skip. When he suggests that her mother had some “funny ideas,” she says she doesn’t know what he means. He drops his friendly demeanor, turning away for the remainder of the meal. After the courses, Eddie delivers a toast tracing 50 years of friendship with Skip and Polly, and then he and Daphne slip out.

While walking uptown, Eddie smokes and describes what followed the divorce. Still in a cast and unable to see Daphne and Leda, he moved into Skip and Polly’s cramped third-floor apartment with no job, no income, and nowhere else to go.

They wander into a wedding reception at the Plaza and dance. A former student of Daphne’s recognizes her and tells her that she was her favorite teacher. On a quiet banquette with champagne and cake, Daphne asks Eddie for the full story. Eddie tells Daphne that he’s gay and that he and Skip had been in a relationship since their first year as roommates at Yale. After Skip married Polly, Eddie struggled with continuing the relationship, and he confided everything to Abigail following a difficult dinner with the Hotallings. She responded by offering him a conventional family life, on the condition that he end his relationship with Skip and live within a conventional marriage. He accepted those terms. He says that, in doing so, he gave up his relationship with Skip.

While walking north along Central Park, Daphne asks about the Whistler story that Eddie told her the night of the accident. He explains that it was a real book proposal about a Wyoming rancher named Mary Carter and that he has kept the photograph of the horse on his office desk ever since. He tried for decades to acquire the book, but Mary never wanted to write it and has since died. Daphne is struck by his invitation to come see the photograph.

Back at Leda’s, Henry is still awake. Daphne tells him that Eddie is gay and tells him that the evening was one of the happiest she can remember. She falls asleep still in her dress in her niece Wynn’s room and dreams of being on a boat with Buddy on a clear, bright day. In the morning, Leda arrives with coffee and aspirin, helps Daphne out of the dress, and gets into bed beside her, ready to hear everything from the beginning.