Summary

For Grace’s eighteenth birthday, Ronald and Anne host Thomas and Nathan for tea. Thomas gives Grace a dented gold ring “set with small stones” (95). Afterward, he takes the teenagers to Aldwinter for the day. While there, they study a large oak tree and several gravestones from a disinterred cemetery. Afterward, Grace and Nathan walk along the water.

At home later, Lorna joins the Macauleys, Thomas, and Nathan for dinner. The friends also bring the man Grace met in Potter’s field. Lorna makes unsavory remarks about the man and Thomas. After Ronald prays, the conversation turns to happiness and contentment. At the end of the night, Thomas takes the man home with him. While helping him bathe, he tells the man about his double life and how the AIDS epidemic impacted him as a young person. Finally, the man speaks...