- Fall has come fast and it's already cold a week later as Neil drives up to see the deer again and think of Brenda.
- They've been writing and calling, but they haven't gotten the hang of meaningful long-distance communication.
- (Alas, these are the days before cell phones, email, and web cams.)
- Back at the library, the man who wanted the Gauguin book had in fact complained, but Neil manages to convince his boss that he's the one being offended. The Gauguin book is missing, and Neil wonders how the boy felt to find it gone. He thinks the boy wouldn't like other artists.
- He thinks it might be better for the boy not to dream of Tahiti since he can't go there.
- Without Brenda, Neil finds life dry and meaningless.
- A letter from her arrives, saying she'll be coming in for the upcoming Jewish holidays. He wants to call the Patimkins and share his joy, but he doubts they'll remember who he is.
- Neil tells Aunt Gladys she's working too hard preparing for the Rosh Hashana (often known as Jewish New Year), to which she's invited ten people.
- The phone rings and it's Brenda calling long distance from Boston.
- Aunt Gladys is making a fuss about the call being long distance, but Neil manages to make her leave him in peace.
- Brenda says she won't be able to come up after all because she has a test and a paper.
- If she did come, she would have to attend services with her mother and wouldn't be able to see Neil anyway.
- She wants him to come up there. He says he can't—he has to work and he's committed to dinner with Aunt Gladys.
- He can't use the Jewish holidays as an excuse to get off work because he didn't do it last year.
- Brenda lures him with a hotel room.
- He agrees to come up.
- Aunt Gladys is really sad Neil is going, and she accuses Brenda of not loving her family. If she did, she'd be coming up for the holidays.
- Finally, she gives Neil her blessing to go.
- Three nights later he's in Boston.
- Brenda looks different.
- It feels a little strange to hug in heavy coats.
- When they get to the hotel room Neil sits on the bed, but Brenda sits in a chair.
- Neil asks what he matter is, and she says something bad happened. Her parents found out that she and Neil had been sleeping together during the summer.
- He wants to know why she didn't tell him sooner.
- She says she just found out.
- Apparently, Brenda's mother found the diaphragm in Brenda's room.
- She hands Neil two letters. She tells him to read the one from her father first, and then the one from her mother, because this is the order they came in.
- Her father's letter is on Patimkin Sinks stationary.
- In the letter he tells Brenda not to worry about the letter she gets from her mother and to buy herself a new coat.
- He's shocked and surprised that Neil and Brenda were having sex, but he blames Neil and will always love Brenda no matter what.
- He wants her to have a nice holiday, not worry, and (as noted) buy herself a new coat.
- He had signed "Ben Patimkin" but had scratched it out in favor of "Your Father" (8.134).
- The letter is grammatically incorrect in places and has lots of words capitalized.
- Now Neil reads Brenda's mother's letter.
- In the letter, Mrs. Patimkin says she hasn't been able to stop crying.
- She can't believe she has a daughter who would do something like that, especially since they have given Brenda everything she could ever want.
- Mrs. Patimkin is especially harsh about Neil and thinks he's a horrible person for disrespecting the family that way. She can't imagine how he must have been raised.
- She thinks Brenda must have been doing horrible things like this for years.
- Brenda has totally "broken [her] parents' hearts" (8.145).
- Neil wants to know why Brenda left the diaphragm at home in the first place.
- She said she didn't think she'd need it here in Boston.
- Neil can't understand this. What if he visited, like now?
- He insinuates that she wanted her parents to find it, or she wouldn't have left it.
- She says that's insane.
- (They argue about this for a page.)
- Brenda says she'll never be able to go home.
- Neil says that's ridiculous. Her dad will be waiting with lots of new clothes, and her mother will get over it.
- He wants to know if Brenda thinks what they did was wrong.
- She says it doesn't matter what she thinks—her parents think they did something wrong.
- Neil says she made a big mistake leaving the diaphragm.
- She can't explain exactly why she left it.
- He wants to know if Brenda is going to take him home for Thanksgiving dinner.
- She says that would be impossible; she wants to know if he can picture the two of them having Thanksgiving with her parents after what's happened.
- He says he can picture it if she can, but he can't if she can't.
- She accuses him of talking gibberish.
- He again accuses her of leaving the diaphragm at home on purpose for her mother to find, implying that this would give her an excuse to end the relationship.
- Brenda says Neil is the one who sabotaged things—first by being judgmental about her nose job and then by being too clingy.
- He says he loved her, and she says she loved him.
- They both realize they just said "loved," past tense, and grow quiet. Neil takes his bag and leaves.
- He walks around the Harvard Yard and stands in front of the Lamont Library.
- He looks at his reflection in the glass and wonders if he is more than his reflection.
- Anguished, he wonders what in him had made him fall in love and then turn it into something else.
- He knows he did love Brenda and he doubts he'll be able to "make love to anyone the way [he] made love to her" (8.254) for a long time.
- Soon he takes the train back to Newark. He arrives on the morning of Rosh Hashana and is even early for his job at the library.