Polly rejects Tegan’s insinuations about Hank, attributing her bruises to Mitch and judging Tegan as irresponsible. Seeking moral justification, Polly wants Tegan to admit she is alone and does not want the baby. Convinced the baby must be delivered soon, she draws on past Labor and Delivery experience and researches at-home induction methods.

With sex and exercise impossible, Polly settles on a recipe called "Midwives Brew" requiring castor oil, apricot juice, lemon tea, and almond butter. After finding only partial ingredients at home, she decides to risk a supermarket trip because Hank will not allow her to keep Tegan indefinitely. Before leaving, she serves Tegan breakfast without utensils and probes her resolve, but Tegan only wavers.

At the store, Polly buys the needed items and buffers them with ordinary groceries. Seeing a police car outside rattles her, but a chatty cashier is the bigger threat, identifying the mix as a labor cocktail. Polly claims she is forty-one weeks pregnant to create a future cover story, then leaves to find the police car gone, though anxiety lingers about being remembered.

Driving home, Polly frets that the lie could expose her if police ask around. As she turns onto her dead-end road, she spots an unfamiliar car in her driveway and a man waiting on her porch, signaling imminent confrontation and escalating the pressure to act quickly.