On May 7, 1995, Vianne and her son, Julien, descend into Paris. After a restless arrival, Vianne wakes in her hotel and is struck by the feeling that, despite her American life, she is finally home. Julien calls to plan the evening reunion, and Vianne decides they should walk through Paris first.

Vianne insists on going on foot, savoring the city’s spring light, smells, and memories. She takes Julien into a pâtisserie for macarons, then they linger at a bistro by the Seine with wine and frites as dusk settles. Crossing the Pont Neuf toward Île de la Cité, Vianne is shaken by a snow globe that triggers memories of wartime winters, and she admits to Julien that she is afraid of what the reunion will bring.

At the hotel ballroom, Vianne finds her name tag and another that unnerves her: Sophie Mauriac. Ushers bring her to the dais beside a young American speaker and three elderly women (Almadora, Eliane, and Anouk). Asked to speak, Vianne publicly honors Isabelle, describing Isabelle’s reckless intensity, Vianne’s long-held regret at misjudging Isabelle, and Isabelle’s final certainty that her life was “enough.” Vianne credits Isabelle, Julien Rossignol, and their friends with running the Nightingale escape route and saving over one hundred and seventeen men, and she explains that she only learned the full scope of Isabelle’s work after Isabelle returned from Ravensbrück.

After Vianne’s speech, the audience rises in applause, and Vianne is swept into a crowd of families thanking her for Isabelle and Julien Rossignol’s sacrifices. Julien stands close, protective, realizing much of this history is new to him. Near the end of the receiving line, Gaëtan appears—older, stooped, unmistakable—and introduces his daughter, who is named Isabelle, a deliberate tribute. Gaëtan kisses Vianne’s cheeks and quietly confesses that he loved Isabelle all his life.

On a balcony overlooking a lit-up Notre Dame and the Seine, Julien presses Vianne about why she never told him any of this. Vianne answers that men tell stories while women “get on with it,” and when Julien asks what Vianne did during the war, she says simply that she survived. They begin, at last, to look at each other honestly as mother and son. Then an American man approaches: Ariel de Champlain, Rachel’s son, whom Vianne once hid. Ari embraces Vianne, reveals he never forgot her or Sophie, and Julien learns that Vianne rescued nineteen Jewish children; Vianne quietly claims she was “a Nightingale in my own way.” As Julien asks what his father knew, Vianne chooses to begin telling her story at last—while still keeping one secret for herself.