As rain begins to fall on the Promenade, Theo’s earlier question draws Ellen into a sudden, calming silence. Ellen’s posture straightens and her face softens, and she moves closer under Theo’s raised umbrella as the two sit shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench beside the Fedder.

Ellen begins speaking in a soft, controlled voice and frames her account as the happiest day of her life: April twelfth, thirty years earlier, in rainy Charleston, when spring flowers filled the city despite her own darkness. Ellen explains that she and her boyfriend, William, were homeless, exhausted, and afraid of being arrested for vagrancy, and that Ellen had already been hospitalized for mental health care twice but could not remain there.

Late at night, Ellen hears a gunshot and immediately believes William has been shot while searching for food. Ellen runs to the sound and finds William dead on the ground; in shock, Ellen throws herself over him in the drizzle as if to keep him from getting wet. The trauma triggers Ellen’s labor, and she becomes hysterical as people gather.

Ellen says she remembers little after that, only that she was taken to a hospital and eventually gave birth to a baby girl. Ellen cries with joy at seeing her child and with grief for William, then recalls being told her blood was “dirty,” which Ellen believes was from starvation rather than illness.

After sleeping, Ellen wakes to find a kind policeman in her hospital room who urges her to rest and grows sad when Ellen asks to see her baby. Ellen begs to hold her daughter—whom she names Willa Francesca—but the policeman avoids answering and implies something is wrong, while Theo continues holding the umbrella over them as Ellen’s story continues into the rain.