Daphne leaves Leda's apartment before finishing the story of the crash because Jonathan is leaving for Wisconsin in the morning. On the trip home, Daphne reflects on the life that followed Eddie's disappearance: Abigail married Lucas Ekker, built a new family around Lucas's positivity empire, and left Daphne and Leda emotionally stranded in different ways. At home, Jonathan greets Daphne tenderly, but dinner exposes strain beneath the tenderness. Jonathan admits that seeing Eddie has unsettled him, and his worry broadens into a larger complaint that retirement has made urgent: Jonathan wants to travel and make fuller use of the time they have left, while Daphne still refuses to fly, does not want to retire, and insists she has not changed.

The next morning, after Daphne drives Jonathan to the airport, her mind returns to the days immediately after the 1980 crash. Daphne remembers carrying notes between hospitalized Leda and Eddie, visiting Eddie's room, and feeling deeply attached to him. She then remembers coming home from school four days later to find Abigail sobbing at the kitchen table and announcing that she was divorcing Eddie because he had nearly killed Daphne. Abigail repeated that explanation so often that young Daphne accepted it as truth and also accepted the guilt of believing she was the reason Eddie was sent away. As an adult, Daphne notices for the first time that something must have changed during those four days in the hospital, because Abigail initially seemed only grateful that everyone had survived.

Instead of calling Abigail, Daphne calls Eddie. Their ease with each other returns immediately, and Eddie sounds as though he has been waiting for her call. When Eddie mentions a black-tie fiftieth anniversary party at the Century Club that he dreads attending alone, Daphne agrees to go with him. She decides not to tell Abigail beforehand, and she also withholds the plan from Jonathan because she does not want him worrying in Wisconsin. Before the party, Daphne goes to Leda and Steve's apartment, where the family speculates about why Abigail really divorced Eddie. Henry quietly suggests that Eddie is gay, a possibility Daphne has never considered but cannot dismiss.

Eddie arrives in a tuxedo with lilies of the valley, and the reunion with Leda's family is emotional and affectionate. At the Century Club, Eddie introduces Daphne to old friends as his daughter, which both startles and pleases her. Daphne meets Skip and Polly Hotalling, the couple whose anniversary the party celebrates, and Skip's cryptic remark that Abigail had "funny ideas" deepens Daphne's suspicion that the official divorce story was false. Eddie gives a warm, funny, and moving toast about meeting Skip at Yale and watching Skip and Polly build a life together. After the formalities, Daphne and Eddie slip away, walk through the city, and then impulsively crash a wedding at the Plaza, where they dance, drink champagne, and enjoy a happiness that feels strangely restorative.

During that long night, Eddie finally explains the hidden history. Eddie tells Daphne that he is gay and that he and Skip began a secret romantic relationship at Yale. They imagined that they could keep each other while outwardly living conventional adult lives, but Skip met Polly and moved toward marriage. After one painful dinner with Skip and Polly, Eddie confessed the truth to Abigail. Abigail then became both his partner and his possible escape from a half-life, but her terms were that Eddie give up Skip and give up being gay. Eddie says he loved Abigail and loved the girls, yet after the car accident Abigail abruptly expelled him from the house, the family, and even Houghton Mifflin while he was still injured, leaving him no chance to say goodbye to Daphne or Leda.

As they walk north along the park, Eddie also tells Daphne that he kept the photograph of Whistler, the horse from the story he told her on the night of the crash, on his desk for decades, a sign that he never really let go of that lost period. Daphne realizes that Eddie did not simply disappear; he was exiled. At Leda's building, Daphne makes Eddie promise not to vanish from her life again, and Eddie promises continued contact while also reminding her that death, not disappearance, is the real limit. Back upstairs, Henry confirms that learning Eddie is gay does seem to make the old story make more sense, and the next morning Leda climbs into bed beside a hungover Daphne and asks for the entire account from the beginning.