Section 1: Part 3 (pp. 32-52) Summary

The narrator writes how he received a letter from his daughter Claire, commenting that he has no plans to write her back or indeed contact anyone. After a few reminiscences of Claire's childhood (one of which is of their drives together), he recalls taking a drive with her a short time after Anna's death. He describes how they passed The Cedars, confessing to an embarrassed and unrealistic hope that the Graces would still be there, unchanged, and that he would see them. He then describes their discovery of a fondly remembered lane, where lived a dairy farmer from whom the narrator, as a child, would collect the family's daily portion of milk. When he gets out of Claire's car for a look at the barn, he encounters a woman introducing herself as Avril, who listens to his...