In this chap­ter of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the nar­ra­tor reflects on their tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship with their daugh­ter, Mag­gie. After Mag­gie moves to Boston post-col­lege, the nar­ra­tor co-signs her lease for a base­ment stu­dio apart­ment and agrees to help with her rent for the first year. Despite their inten­tions, ten­sion builds as Mag­gie works at Dr. Cell Phone, owned by Oliv­er Ding­ham, a man seem­ing­ly infat­u­at­ed with her. The nar­ra­tor fears for Maggie’s safe­ty and her poten­tial roman­tic involve­ment with Oliv­er, push­ing her to find a dif­fer­ent job, but Mag­gie dis­miss­es these con­cerns, believ­ing any tech-relat­ed job would bol­ster her résumé.

One fate­ful Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Mag­gie arrives unex­pect­ed­ly, express­ing home­sick­ness after dri­ving all night. Her vis­it brings a brief respite filled with fam­i­ly activ­i­ties, but a sense of anx­i­ety lingers. Lat­er, Mag­gie sub­tly asks the nar­ra­tor to lie about what time she arrived, insist­ing on an ali­bi that con­tra­dicts the truth. When con­front­ed, she insists it isn’t lying, cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of dis­trust between them. Their rela­tion­ship fur­ther dete­ri­o­rates, lead­ing to Mag­gie speed­ing away after an unset­tling exchange.

The fol­low­ing days are tense as the nar­ra­tor attempts to pre­pare for an impend­ing cri­sis sur­round­ing a fire at Dr. Cell Phone, linked to Oliv­er Ding­ham. The nar­ra­tor is approached by Leonard Sum­mers, an inves­ti­ga­tor who reveals the fire was no acci­dent and rais­es con­cerns about Maggie’s job and her con­nec­tion to Oliv­er. He sug­gests that Mag­gie may be impli­cat­ed in the inci­dent, includ­ing insin­u­a­tions about her char­ac­ter and past behav­iors. The nar­ra­tor strug­gles with the real­i­ty of Mag­gie’s choic­es while feel­ing a press­ing oblig­a­tion to pro­tect her.

The nar­ra­tive cap­tures the com­plex­i­ty of parental love, trust, and the painful deci­sions par­ents must make for their chil­dren. As Mag­gie’s choic­es become increas­ing­ly ques­tion­able, the nar­ra­tor faces a moral dilem­ma: whether to lie to save her from the con­se­quences of her actions or to con­front the painful truth of what has occurred. The chap­ter con­cludes with an immi­nent clash between famil­ial loy­al­ty and the con­se­quences of deceit, leav­ing an emo­tion­al weight that sug­gests future con­flicts to resolve.