In this chap­ter of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the par­ty atmos­phere has shift­ed from a live­ly jazz trio to a rau­cous elec­tron­ic dance scene, with the pound­ing music over­whelm­ing con­ver­sa­tion. The pro­tag­o­nist, Frank, finds him­self alone at his din­ner table, where Tam­my and Abi­gail have left him sur­round­ed by unfa­mil­iar faces engaged in bois­ter­ous rev­el­ry. He scans the lawn, search­ing for Mag­gie amongst the chaos, wit­ness­ing more curi­ous behav­iors, like two men mak­ing out on a col­laps­ing chair and women throw­ing horse­shoes into the dark­ness.

Tam­my final­ly appears, car­ry­ing a drowsy Abi­gail, who express­es her remorse for drop­ping food ear­li­er. Tam­my men­tions that Mag­gie had come look­ing for Frank, but left after wait­ing too long. Con­cerned about Abigail’s dis­com­fort and the ques­tion­able envi­ron­ment, she opts to take her away. Frank reflects on his sis­ter’s sit­u­a­tion, know­ing that her par­ent­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties were being com­pro­mised by the chaot­ic par­ty.

After­ward, Frank walks down to a bon­fire on the beach, wor­ried about safe­ty as young peo­ple frol­ic in and around the fire, and he notices nudi­ty and par­ty­ing, which inten­si­fies his pro­tec­tive instincts for Mag­gie. When he finds her among the rev­el­ers, she play­ful­ly encour­ages him to join the swim­ming par­ty, jok­ing about the micro­dos­ing of drugs that some are try­ing. Frank is grate­ful to dis­cov­er that Aidan is not part of this scene, prompt­ing con­cern about Aidan’s where­abouts at this cru­cial fam­i­ly gath­er­ing.

Their con­ver­sa­tion high­lights Frank’s appre­hen­sion about the par­ty’s nature and the peo­ple involved. He attempts to focus on a promise of a morn­ing canoe trip with Mag­gie, sym­bol­iz­ing his desire to rebuild their bond after her mother’s death fif­teen years pri­or. How­ev­er, con­ver­sa­tions with Errol and Ger­ry reveal soci­etal expec­ta­tions regard­ing rela­tion­ships and par­ent­ing, adding to his inter­nal con­flict regard­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ics.

The chap­ter ends on a tense note as Frank ques­tions Aidan’s absence, peer­ing into the lodge and sens­ing a fig­ure watch­ing him from a win­dow, which leaves him feel­ing even more uneasy. Despite his exhaus­tion, there’s a lin­ger­ing con­cern as he ques­tions the fam­i­ly val­ues and the well-being of those around him. The nar­ra­tive cap­tures the com­plex­i­ty of par­ent­ing amid fes­tive chaos and the emo­tion­al under­cur­rents of famil­ial rela­tion­ships, set­ting the stage for deep­er explo­ration of these themes.