Neva and her father turn off the highway onto a dark pine road and reach the decaying Home for Unwed Mothers, a place Neva has feared for months. Neva briefly hopes they have the wrong address, but her father forces her inside and heads toward an “Office” door, intent on completing the drop-off.

Inside, a tough, heavily pregnant blonde girl on an upstairs balcony mocks them and asks for cigarettes. In the office area, a severe woman in lavender, Mrs. Deckle, scolds Neva’s father for arriving late and scrutinizes Neva with open judgment. Miss Wellwood, the gray, efficient woman in charge, greets them and decides Neva should be shown around while Miss Wellwood speaks privately with Neva’s father.

Neva begs to stay with her father, but Miss Wellwood orders the blonde—Rose—to escort Neva out, separating them despite Neva asking for a proper goodbye. In the hall, Neva learns the girls do not use real names, and Hazel, a bookish brunette, stops Neva from giving hers. Nearby, Daisy barricades herself in a bathroom to avoid a “water shot,” prompting a nurse to threaten to break in while ordering the girls to fetch Myrtle.

Hazel, Rose, and Neva go upstairs, encountering Briony, a prim, controlled girl who is told to guard Daisy’s door while the nurse fetches a screwdriver. Hazel leads Neva to the “Congregation Room,” a bleak common room with stale entertainment, and they find Myrtle—massive and unsteady—who claims she was “sent here by mistake” and shuffles off toward the clinic when told Dr. Vincent wants her.

Hazel offers Neva practical comfort: follow the rules and the Home will become tolerable. But Rose spots Neva’s father’s station wagon leaving. Neva panics, runs to the balcony door, and screams for her father as his taillights vanish into the trees, collapsing into sobs as she realizes she has been abandoned at the Home.