In West Mills

In the summer of 1976, Knot cares for Pratt, who has gout, in the mobile home he installed on Pleasant’s old property. Knot is about to go home for a drink—which Pratt still disapproves of—when he tells her that he saw Milton Guppy at the gas station the day before, and that Guppy told Pratt to ask Knot about the pox she had.

After Pratt asks about the pox, Knot finally tells him that Fran is his daughter. Pratt is angry that she didn’t tell him sooner, and she leaves. As Knot hurries away, she falls, and Pratt helps her back up. She tells him that she is “so sorry” (212). Together, they go see Fran, who once asked Knot who her biological father was shortly after Phil died, but Knot told her that it didn’t matter. When they arrive, Knot asks whether Fran should send her daughter away, but Fran tells her that she hides nothing from her children. After Pratt is revealed as her father, Fran admits that she suspected as much but never worried much about it. Knot wonders if she should have told Eunice more about her father, whose full name she never learned.

Life in West Mills changes little over the next few years.