Saint drives alone across the northwest plains to Robins Elk, carrying everything she has saved for Theodore in her trunk. She has assembled yearly gifts, letters, shells, leaves, photographs, old case clippings, and a copy of Where the Wild Things Are, carefully arranged in chronological order inside a leather box. In her final letter, Saint writes about her life with Charlotte, describing how Charlotte slowly learned the truth about her father, found confidence through art, improved at school, and chose a future in law and public defense.

When Saint reaches the Addis farm, she intends only to leave the box by the mailbox and go without disturbing Theodore’s life. That plan fails when Candice Addis sees her from the farmhouse window and comes out to meet her. Saint recognizes Candice from the hospital room years earlier, and Candice immediately welcomes her with warmth instead of suspicion.

Seated together beneath a tree, the two women talk about the farm, Saint’s work, and the old prison escape. When Candice asks whether Saint had been there, Saint remembers protecting Grace after Eli Aaron’s fall and maintaining the version of events that allowed Joseph Macauley to remain gone. Candice then tells Saint that Theodore is thriving at sports, academics, and nearly everything he attempts, and reveals that Theodore already knows about Saint.

Candice offers Saint the chance to meet Theodore, but Saint cannot bring herself to cross that boundary and says she only wanted him to know she cared. Memories of being rejected, cast out, and beaten while pregnant rise up in her, and Candice’s compassion nearly breaks her. Saint explains that she has been quietly monitoring the farm’s finances for years and leaves a check from the sale of a painting to help Theodore and the family. After learning that Theodore keeps bees from an old hive he found in the woods, Saint finally drives away and stops only once she is off their land, where she cries for the girl she once was and the man her son will become.