SPOILERS!!!
Cooper comes clean about what he knows about Mallory and Jake. It happens when Link refuses to go and see his father on Labour’s Weekend, so she asks Cooper to have him that weekend because Link wants go to a concert with his uncle. Cooper tells her that he knows about the reason why she wants to get rid of her son that weekend. Mallory can’t deny and only says that after losing her parents, she can’t be left without Jake either.
Then Leland betrays Mallory in the worst possible way. She writes an entry on her blog, about a friend who meets her lover once a year and has been doing so for many years. Leland gives many details, and when Ursula reads the blog, she starts thinking about Jake and his annual trip to Nantucket. Leland mentions sand dollars and fortune cookies, and Ursula remembers find these in an envelope years ago. Ursula won’t confront Jake, so she does the next best thing. She contacts Cooper and asks him straightaway, and after a hesitation, Cooper tells her that Jake and he go to Nantucket every single year. After the conversation Cooper calls his sister, showing how angry he is because he had to lie for her. After Cooper hangs up, Mallory tries to find the article that Ursula must have read and discovers Leland’s blog. Without wasting any time, Mallory calls Leland, and for once she stands to her and tells her how betrayed she feels and how she realises that she has never had a friend in her. This is the end of their friendship, and that Christmas when Leland sends her presents, Mallory puts them in the bin and tells her son that Leland is dead for her.
The next year when Jake goes to visit her, he suggests they go on her boat. There is a uncomfortable encounter with Bayer, the man Mallory had a brief affair with years ago. He is also at the dock because he has a boat. Jake and Bayer also met years ago in Ursula’s line of work, but neither Jake nor Bayer remember where they met, but Bayer insists that he has seen Jake before. The last day of their time together, Mallory and Jake are in bed. She is sleeping, but Jake is awake and watches her. It is then that he notices some mark on her back, and he makes a mental note to tell her to go and have that checked out. I imagine this is the cancer that Mallory is to die of, which is how the novel started.
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