Saint spends the evening increasingly anxious about Charlotte. Mrs. Meyer calls to report seeing Matt Leavesham at the Monta Clare Drugstore and speculates that the boy is buying either condoms or a sedative, which pushes Saint closer to open confrontation. Saint hangs up, keeps worrying, and struggles not to go to the Leavesham house armed and enraged.

As the night passes, Saint paces, makes calls, and finally finds the Leaveshams' address. Looking through a window, Saint sees Charlotte and Matt kissing in the den. Saint hammers on the door, storms inside, and pins Matt against the hallway wallpaper before Charlotte gets away.

Saint catches Charlotte at the end of Cotterham Avenue and tries to stop Charlotte by the arm. The argument quickly escalates: Saint accuses Charlotte of breaking curfew, Charlotte snaps that Saint is not her mother, and Saint cruelly answers that she thanks God for that every day. Hurt by the remark, Charlotte strikes back by implying Saint would have gotten rid of her own child and then attacks Saint's habits, loneliness, and failed marriage.

Pressed by Charlotte's insults and by earlier tensions with her grandmother, Saint finally says what she has been carrying in secret: Jimmy beat her while she was pregnant, fractured her eye socket and jaw, and left her still living in fear despite being a police officer with a gun. The confession stops Charlotte for a moment and changes the meaning of everything she has just said. Charlotte cannot absorb it, and instead of answering, Charlotte turns and runs.