Rocky's elderly parents arrive at the beach, ferried by Jamie and Maya. Rocky tears up at the sight of her white-haired mother Alice and father Mort. Willa attentively helps her grandmother with a seltzer can, and Rocky and Nick exchange a worried glance about Alice's frailty, which Alice waves off.

The family eats Rocky's carefully customized sandwiches while Jamie and Maya swim. Mort asks Willa for tech help with his spam folder, riffs about canned Spam, and teaches her Yiddish words like schlemiel and schmegegge. Rocky dozes, eavesdrops on drunken neighbors, and observes the colorful beach crowd, musing on youth, bodies, and aging.

Willa introduces her girlfriend Callie, the surf-shop lifeguard, kissing her openly. Rocky is charmed; Alice politely looks away. After Callie leaves, Alice squeezes Rocky's trembling hand and reassures her she's fine, though Rocky knows she's lying and accepts the comfort anyway.

Rocky reflects privately on a past miscarriage—her parents' loving offers of help—and alludes to a more recent crisis three years ago involving Willa and a Boston hospital, when a stranger online offered support. She frames these memories around the grace of people showing up for one another.

The chapter closes with Alice wanting to gather rose hips from the dunes for tea. Rocky clumsily pulls her tiny mother into the sand, both laughing, before Nick helps Alice up. Mother and daughter walk together into the dunes to forage.