Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Part 6, unlike the previous parts of the novel, does not incorporate multiple documents or perspectives. Instead, Bee narrates the story of her trip with her father to Antarctica, interspersed with flashbacks describing her brief time at Choate and her return to Seattle. Bee relates how disconnected she already felt from her fellow Choate students when the manila envelope arrived containing the documents she is now assembling and expanding into a book. Bee is convinced that Bernadette is alive and that it was Bernadette who sent her the manila envelope. Bee—angered by Elgin’s betrayal of her mother, including his attempt to have her committed, his apparent refusal now to believe she is still alive, and his involvement with Soo-Lin—has made an “executive decision” about her father: “I hate him” (281).

Bee and Elgin travel to Antarctica together, a trip that Bee sees as a search for her mother and that Elgin sees as an attempt to find closure and reconcile with his daughter. Bee is annoyed by her father’s fussy habits and obsessively careful packing. She is also upset by the crews’ references to “the lady who killed herself,” now rumored to have been an escaped mental patient. 

On the voyage to Antarctica, between bouts of seasickness that keep her in bed for hours and make the passage of time uncertain, Bee attempts to investigate her mother’s disappearance. She tries to obtain an itemized receipt of Bernadette’s purchases from the gift shop, hoping to prove her mother was buying supplies with which she could survive alone in Antarctica, an argument Elgin disproves by taking Bee out into the bitter cold. 

Elgin argues that Bernadette’s massive bar tab indicates a woman bent on drowning her sorrows who likely fell from the deck, intoxicated, as the ship passed through the rough waters of the Drake passage. As the two argue, Bee says that the use of mother made of Manjula is no different from how Elgin intends people to use Samantha 2. She says that she and her mother formed a close knit, happy pair while Elgin disappeared into his work, and that her mother would never risk being permanently separated from Bee. 

Once the ship arrives in Antarctica, Bee refuses to join in any of the daily excursions until the reach Port Lockroy, a former British military outpost with a post office from which, Bee thinks, Bernadette could have mailed the manila envelope. Bee fruitlessly searches the buildings at Port Lockroy for her mother. Having found nothing, she sits on the rocks with Elgin, who tells her that Samantha 2 has been cancelled, that he has quit Microsoft, and that Soo-Lin is pregnant. 

Now reconciled, Bee and Elgin begin to enjoy their trip, helping one of the scientists on board to collect data on local penguin colonies. They also encounter clues as to how Bernadette’s trip unfolded. They discover if a passenger leaves the ship without using their ID to scan out, the assumption is that they remained onboard. They also learn that the “Pink Penguin” is the signature drink of scientists working at Palmer Station, a scientific research station, and that the scientists from Palmer often spend time on the cruise ships. Bernadette, rather than drinking alone, may have befriended a group of scientists. The two wonder if Bernadette is at Palmer Station but are told it’s a strictly controlled station with a five-year waiting list. Also, the ship did not call at Palmer Station during Bernadette’s voyage. 

However, Bee and Elgin now know that the scientists and others working in the Antarctic regularly move from one ship to another when they meet offshore. When they arrive at Palmer Station, they see a ship which crossed paths in this way with their own cruise ship sitting at the dock. Elgin, now convinced that Bernadette is alive, steals a raft and takes Bee ashore to look for her mother. He gives Bee a small velvet bag, telling her to give it to Bernadette if she finds her. As Bee searches the station, she sees another raft carrying the ship’s crew approaching her father and forcing him to return to the ship. As she calls after him, she hears her mother’s voice behind her. The two are reunited, and Bernadette asks why Bee has not responded to her letter explaining what she’s done and where she is. Bee protests that she never got this letter, then gives Bernadette the velvet bag. Inside is the locket with the picture of St. Bernadette; Elgin has added “Bee” and “your escape” to the enclosed list of Bernadette’s “miracles” (332).