The Cousins

As stunned silence falls over the crowd, Mildred says that “[Milly and Jonah’s] parents were nothing but disappointments, and [her grandchildren] are entirely the same” (318). Jonah declares that Anders “hates [Mildred’s] guts and always has” (318), but Anders suddenly appears and declares that this is a vicious lie from an imposter. Mildred panics and runs out of the room as Anders tells the party that Jonah is an imposter. He claims that Archer approached the children directly and “offered them jobs under false pretenses, hoping to worm his way back into [Mildred’s] good graces” (321), but his son JT wisely refused to go. However, when a news article was published showing Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah attending Dr. Baxter’s funeral, Anders and JT realized that Jonah North was passing himself off as JT. Aubrey understands that once that photograph hit the news, JT had no choice but to confess to the plan, and Anders is now twisting the truth to “make him and JT sound blameless, and the rest of [them] sound like conniving gold diggers” (323). Jonah calls Anders a liar, declaring that “[Anders is] trying to manipulate the entire room, just like [Anders] manipulated [Jonah’s] parents” (322). At Jonah’s words, Milly finally understands who Jonah is: The son of one of Anders’s victims.