The condition of Willa’s house has deteriorated to the point that she and Iano are sleeping on a mattress on the living room floor, and the family has to use a camping stove to cook after a gas main leaked. The house’s heat is also gas-based, and so the family relies on a space heater in one room to stay warm. Chris calls Willa and tells her that her house isn’t the one that Mary once lived in, but that he believes she lives in the Greenwoods’ house. Chris has also received copies of many of Mary’s letters from an archive, and Willa is eager to read them. Thatcher comes up during their conversation, and Chris alludes to Thatcher’s having been involved in a murder some time after the controversy over his teaching. (This refers to Thatcher testifying on Carruth’s behalf during Landis’s trial, which takes place in Chapter 16.)

In low spirits, the family celebrates Christmas together. Zeke has been spending more and more time in Boston and wants Willa and Iano to have more of a guardian role with Dusty. He discusses the legal details with Willa. One night while she watches over Nick, who has come home from the hospital but is a shell of his former self, Willa hears some of what Tig went through when she spent several years in Cuba.