Rocky and Nick stand in line at the bakery in the hot sun, quietly bickering because Nick brought home a cherry-cheese Danish when Rocky never eats sweets in the morning. Rocky admits she feels 'unknown' by him after thirty years, then defuses the tension by blaming a hot flash and caffeine deficit. They return to the cottage with an expensive haul of pastries and coffee.

Over breakfast on the deck, Rocky reflects on the new emptiness of her life with grown children—Jamie working in New York, Willa finishing her junior year at Barnard—and the awkward small talk she and Nick now make. She muses on Nick's lifelong absence of jealousy, which she once worried was boring but now considers the foundation of her life. She notes the cottage's modest charms, including a new Nespresso replacing the beloved old Mr. Coffee.

Maya suddenly bolts to the bathroom and throws up. Rocky tactlessly asks if she might be pregnant, embarrassing Willa; Maya laughs it off, blaming a bad clam from the night before. She recovers quickly, joining Willa on the sofa bed with the cat.

Everyone being awake, Rocky orchestrates the elaborate ritual of beach sandwich-making, accommodating each person's particular preferences, and packs a full cooler. While applying sunscreen to Willa, Rocky reflects on how her children's bodies are now off-limits to her, and how she misses the constant physical closeness of their childhood—and even Nick's groping, which she once swatted away.

At the tram stop on the way to the National Seashore, Jamie poses a hypothetical: would they trade real life for a more pleasurable virtual simulation? Willa would stay in real life; Nick says he'd take the simulation, which Rocky receives uneasily. She quips that Nick is basically a robot, and he and Jamie agree they aren't great with feelings. Privately, Rocky concludes she'd choose this life too, pain and all—though she'd give up the pain itself if she could.