The family wrangles itself onto the tram to the beach, with Rocky's father grumbling about leaving their belongings unattended and Willa quizzing her mother on Harry Potter details that menopause has erased from memory. At the beach entrance, the purple shark flag and a flyer for a 'Stroke Clinic' (swim lessons) prompt jokes, and Rocky's father garbles 'Crohn's disease' as 'rogues disease' when describing an ailing friend Lester. Rocky's mother fusses over Rocky's sun-exposed legs, prompting Willa to note the proprietary love of mothers over the bodies they made.

Rocky's father wades only ankle-deep, declining to swim with Nick, Jamie, and Maya, which Rocky finds reassuring. Willa, now feeling perpetually cold without her 'brown fat,' opts not to swim and instead reflects on 'unspecial' birds like turkey vultures.

Rocky drifts into a memory of a summer when Jamie was four and Willa was a baby: trapped in a beach shade tent, exhausted, secretly pregnant, resentful of Nick's carefree swimming, and overwhelmed by love for her children. Jamie had crawled in beside her asking innocent questions about the ocean.

Back in the present, Jamie wakes Rocky and asks her to walk. Calmly but pointedly, he tells her he wishes Maya hadn't confided in Rocky first about the pregnancy—he feels caught in the middle of something not really about her. Rocky apologizes, acknowledging her poor boundaries. Jamie softens, admits he does want to talk to her about it, and says the decision is entirely Maya's; he is trying not to form an opinion. Rocky hugs him.

Another flashback intrudes: during that earlier pregnancy, Rocky tentatively suggested to Nick they might not have the baby, but Nick wanted to keep it, leaving Rocky feeling unheard and 'holding her own bloody heart.'

Walking back, Rocky sees a crowd gathered at the shoreline pointing into the water. Convinced her father is drowning, she breaks into a run as Jamie calls after her.