Avery, Max, and Grayson spend time in the Hawthorne House game room, where Max is delighted by the enormous collection of board games. After Grayson dominates several games, Jameson arrives and suggests a Hawthorne family favorite: strip bowling.

The group begins playing, with Jameson explaining that the goal is to knock over as few pins as possible without landing in the gutter, which costs the player an article of clothing. The charged, risky game heightens the tension between Avery, Jameson, and Grayson, but the atmosphere remains playful until Xander bursts into the room, out of breath and urgently trying to focus.

Xander reports that Thea was right about Rebecca’s mother having a bad day. After drinking, Rebecca’s mother told Rebecca something shocking: when she said at the fundraiser that all her babies died, she was not only referring to Emily but also to Toby.

Xander explains that Toby was a Laughlin. Decades earlier, when Rebecca’s mother was a teenager living in Wayback Cottage, she became pregnant. Her parents covered it up, and according to Rebecca, Rebecca’s mother was not even told that the Hawthornes adopted the baby. Instead, she believed the Hawthorne grandmother truly had been pregnant and that her own child had gone to strangers.

Avery and the Hawthorne brothers realize how devastating the deception must have been once Rebecca’s mother figured out that Toby, growing up nearby, was her son. Xander adds that Rebecca has now been forbidden from seeing the Hawthornes because her mother believes the Hawthorne family takes without regard for whom they hurt. She blames the Hawthornes for Toby’s death, Emily’s death, and everything that followed, leaving the group stunned by the depth of the Laughlins’ grievance.