After spending months living with her sister, the protagonist returns home to her husband. She experiences “a different kind of disconnect” (161) from that of the portal when her cat doesn’t recognize her, and her husband has become used to sleeping without another person beside him. He purchases a second bed so that he can sleep by himself.

As summer begins, the protagonist experiences a lull in her work. She notices how different her voice sounds to her now that she has used it to recite stories to the baby. It is the first time she has thought of her voice as purposeful. Though she tries to reengage with the portal, the topics that its users are focused on seem trivial compared to the baby. The sister keeps the protagonist up to date with the baby’s development through text messages. While at the park, the protagonist watches a mother changing her child on a bench and asking the child: “Can I keep you? Just for a little while?” (166).

When the baby is 14 weeks old, the family takes her to Disney World. The protagonist notices a teenager taking pictures of the baby in her specially designed stroller; both the protagonist and the sister worry about him posting the pictures, as the sister does not want anyone to be “scared” of the baby’s appearance.