In Madras, 1973, Mariamma’s pregnancy test is negative, lifting her dread of becoming an unmarried mother of a Naxalite’s child. Conflicted, she also feels oddly disappointed and hides that from Staff Akila. She returns home for Christmas, longing for Parambil’s steadiness after two turbulent years.

At Parambil, Philipose and Anna Chedethi embrace her, notice her fading facial scar, and feed her favorite meen vevichathu. Philipose, anxious with news, reveals that Lenin has disappeared and reportedly joined the Naxalites. To protect her secret, Mariamma feigns distance and condemns Lenin’s choices, even as Philipose defends Lenin’s compassion for the oppressed.

Alone in the kitchen, Mariamma grieves for Big Ammachi and Baby Mol, lights one of Ammachi’s small lamps, and draws strength from memory. In Philipose’s study, he hungers for details of her medical training and shares the Paracelsus oath he copied: “Love the sick, each and every one, as if they were your own,” urging the kind of physician he hopes she’ll be.

That night, Anna Chedethi describes Joppan’s downfall: workers striking for ownership, Party siding against him, a sunk barge and arson attempt, and his decision to close the barge business. In the morning, Mariamma revisits the nest and the Stone Woman, then inspects the newly widened canal and the hospital’s poured foundation, feeling both continuity and change as the current sweeps faster than she remembers.

En route to the train, Philipose confides that managing Parambil exhausts him and outlines an offer to Joppan: ten acres outright and ten years managing Parambil for a ten-percent share, with the option to buy more land. Quoting “The Hound of Heaven,” he muses on fate finding us. Their parting is wrenching; guilt over her secrets lingers as Mariamma returns to Madras, their bond nonetheless strengthened.