In the present day, Iris continues her walks, visiting local bakeries and sites associated with the story she is telling. On one occasion, she sees a young woman and mistakes her for her granddaughter: 

Sabrina, I thought. She's come back after all. How forgiven I felt, for that instant—how blessed, how filled with grace, as if time had rolled backwards and my dry old wooden cane had burst operatically into flower. But on second glance—no, on third—it was not Sabrina at all; only some stranger. Who am I anyway, to deserve such a miraculous outcome? (136).

Nevertheless, Iris continues her memoir, increasingly aware of her heart condition.

In the aftermath of Liliana's death, Laura becomes curious about various religious questions. These anxieties culminate in Laura jumping into the Louveteau River while on a walk with Iris: she had heard an acquaintance, Mrs. Hillcoate, explain the wartime deaths of soldiers as "[giving] their lives to God, because that's what God wants," and hoped to bring her mother back to life by sacrificing her own (150). 

As the girls grow older, their father is preoccupied both with business troubles and his affair with a woman named Callista Fitzsimmons, an artist who designs the local WWI memorial.