In this chap­ter of *The Berry Pick­ers*, we wit­ness Ben, a pro­tag­o­nist con­fined to his bed and grap­pling with pain and mor­tal­i­ty. Each day is marked off on a small cal­en­dar, indi­cat­ing how few days he has left. His body is weak­ened by ill­ness, though the pres­ence of fam­i­ly mem­bers like his broth­er Ben and daugh­ter Leah pro­vides some com­fort. Leah arrives every Tues­day, bring­ing light into Ben’s oth­er­wise shad­owed life. Despite her warmth, there is an emo­tion­al dis­tance between them; Leah has nev­er referred to him as “Dad,” a point that weighs heav­i­ly on Ben.

As Leah chats with Ben, mem­o­ries flood back. He reflects on his past, includ­ing his sis­ter Ruthie, who dis­ap­peared when he was a child. Leah’s casu­al men­tion of Ruthie’s dis­ap­pear­ance feels haunt­ing, indi­cat­ing a sig­nif­i­cant emo­tion­al bur­den car­ried by the fam­i­ly. This mem­o­ry trig­gers a poignant dis­cus­sion about hope and loss, show­cas­ing Leah’s inno­cence as she process­es infor­ma­tion about a sib­ling she nev­er met.

Ben’s reflec­tions turn dark­er as he recalls life after los­ing both Ruthie and his broth­er Char­lie. The fam­i­ly tries to move for­ward, with Ben work­ing sev­er­al jobs and Mae pur­su­ing inde­pen­dence, strug­gling to find love in a world that seems indif­fer­ent to their suf­fer­ings. Mean­while, Ben’s ear­li­er polit­i­cal activism against injus­tices becomes a sub­plot, hint­ing at the pas­sion that dri­ves some to fight against the odds.

The nar­ra­tive shifts dra­mat­i­cal­ly when Ben’s broth­er returns from Boston with a shock­ing rev­e­la­tion: he claims to have seen Ruthie alive in the city. This fuels a clash of emo­tions among the fam­i­ly mem­bers, marked by a mix­ture of hope and scep­ti­cism. The antic­i­pa­tion of poten­tial­ly reunit­ing with Ruthie brings new ten­sion into the home.

The chap­ter con­cludes with the frail Ben nav­i­gat­ing mem­o­ries of his past and the weight of expec­ta­tions as he con­sid­ers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing Ruthie, a jour­ney that seems to encap­su­late both despair and the flick­er of hope for clo­sure. The emo­tion­al peaks and val­leys illus­trat­ed in this chap­ter con­vey the uni­ver­sal strug­gle with loss, long­ing, and the com­plex­i­ty of famil­ial love.