Rowan wakes to find Dominic beside her after the accident at sea. The other children have gone for supplies, including Raff despite his injured wrist, and Rowan immediately apologizes because Dominic nearly lost his son. Their attempt at comfort becomes physically intimate as they lie facing each other in the same bed.

When Dominic tells Rowan that she has been sleeping and dreaming again, Rowan decides to explain the source of her recurring nightmares. She reflects that she never told Hank this part of her past, even though it shaped her life and their marriage. Feeling unexpectedly less afraid on Shearwater, Rowan names the memory she has spent years trying to suppress.

Rowan tells Dominic about growing up on a houseboat with her parents and three younger siblings. As the oldest child, Rowan cared for them while her parents worked ashore, and she was especially devoted to her youngest brother, River. Rowan then reveals the core of her trauma: River drowned while Rowan was supposed to be watching him, and that loss is what returns to her in her dreams.

In the aftermath of the confession, grief and need blur together, and Rowan and Dominic kiss with startling intensity. The moment suggests how deeply their fear, loneliness, and mutual dependence have drawn them toward each other. But Rowan breaks away almost immediately, saying that she cannot continue.

Rowan leaves the room and walks alone onto the black sand among the island's bones and red kelp. Outside, the emotional release gives way to her unresolved suspicion about Hank's disappearance. Rowan ends the chapter confronting the possibility that Dominic may have killed her husband, and the thought forces her to question what crossing that emotional line with Dominic would make of her.