Unsheltered

Carruth dies from his gunshot injury, and the prosecuting attorney asks Thatcher to testify at Landis’s trial on behalf of Carruth. Thatcher agrees, even though he knows it will make Rose unhappy. When he tells her, Rose informs him that her mother and the widower father of her friends are to be married, and that her mother’s future husband does business with Landis. This gives her family a vested interest in Landis’s innocence. Rose also informs him that she is in love with the family’s son and that her friends’ entire family will be moving into their current house. Thatcher will have to leave and grant his wife a divorce.

Thatcher testifies at the trial and makes a statement against Landis and the mindset that the town founder advocates and perpetuates—one of clinging to traditional beliefs no matter what the evidence is against them.

On Dusty’s first birthday, Tig throws him a massive party in the house’s backyard. Zeke, who spends most of his time in Boston, attends and tells Willa he’s moving in with a new girlfriend there. Tig and Jorge continue overhauling the carriage house, and Willa’s house is being torn down and its materials salvaged. Iano and Willa get an apartment in Philadelphia close to Iano’s university, where he will be teaching indefinitely. Willa intends to come back to Vineland often to see Dusty and keep doing research on Mary and Thatcher for her book.

Zeke and Tig go through their paper keepsakes as the family packs up the house for everyone to move. Willa finds a quote that her mother asked her to read at her funeral. Willa forgot it, which upsets her. Tig, while tending to Dusty, calls herself Mama in front of Zeke. This prompts Willa and Tig to tell Zeke that Dusty will be living with Tig when Willa and Iano move to Philadelphia. Upset, Zeke storms out of the house.

Willa donates some of her family’s papers and a valuable rug to the historical society. Chris promises to keep helping her with her Mary Treat/Thatcher Greenwood research and shows her botanical sketches sent to Mary from Provo, Utah. Though the sender is not identified, the sketches are from Thatcher, who leaves Vineland for a botanical collecting expedition in the next chapter.

Thatcher and Mary enjoy a summer’s day alone in the Pine Barrens. Thatcher and Rose have quietly divorced, Mary has moved out of her house and is staying with friends in Vineland while she saves money to build a house of her own, and Thatcher is getting ready to leave Vineland on a botanical expedition in the western United States. Landis was declared innocent of Carruth’s murder, pleading temporary insanity.

Freed from the shackle of his marriage and the responsibility of appeasing the conservative citizens of Vineland, Thatcher makes plans to meet Mary in Florida, where she will be spending the winter, after his collecting expedition has ended.