- She headed for the cliff in the canoe. When she reached the right spot, she got in the water.
- After a couple of unsuccessful dives down trying to spot the painting, she finally did see something, but it wasn't exactly what she expected.
- Things get pretty abstract from there, but the narrator describes what she saw as follows: "It was there but it wasn't a painting, it wasn't on the rock. It was below me, drifting towards me from the furthest level where there was no life, a dark oval trailing limbs. It was blurred but it had eyes, they were open, it was something I knew about, a dead thing, it was dead" (17.8). Hmm, now what does that mean?
- She surfaced and found that Joe had rowed out in the other canoe to find her.
- She lay out on the bottom of the canoe and thought about what she'd seen. She claimed that the figure swimming beneath her had been a fetus she aborted. She then realizes that this is child she has been referring to this entire novel: "I knew when it was, it was in a bottle curled up, staring out at me like a cat pickled; it had huge jelly eyes and fins instead of hands, fish gills, I couldn't let it out, it was dead already, it had drowned in air. It was there when I woke up, suspended in the air above me like a chalice, an evil grail and I thought, Whatever it is, part of myself or a separate creature, I killed it. It wasn't a child but it could have been one, I didn't allow it" (17.14).
- She then admits that that memory is a little off as well—she never actually saw the fetus. She slowly pieces together what actually (?) happened:
- She had apparently come up with a fake memory or series of memories to cover up the pain and unpleasantness of this segment of her life.
- From there, we get some more revisions to the memories she has been relaying to us. We learn that the dude she was supposedly married to was actually married to someone else. She had worn a ring as a cover, it seems. He hadn't been with her for the procedure, but he came to get her afterwards. From some of the key details about the day (for example, the fountain she and her "husband" see while exiting the clinic), it becomes clear that the narrator's memory of getting married was actually of the day she had the abortion, which explains why her "husband" was treating her like an "invalid" (or rather, a patient) as they left the building. She claims she couldn't go home after that and blew out of town, apparently just sending her parents a postcard afterwards from her destination. They never found out what had happened.
- That's all the memory revision for now. Joe asked her if she was okay. She didn't answer. She just kept thinking about the past.
- Also, she thought she understood her dad's map now—he had started out looking for existing paintings, but then he had discovered "new oracles" (17.26) that made him see that kind of revelatory visions that she encountered underwater.
- She then decided to leave an offering, paddling toward a stone shelf where she could leave her sweatshirt.
- Joe had followed, asking again if she was okay. Finally she said yes. He kissed her, to which she responded that she didn't love him, but apparently he didn't hear that. He tried to get her to have sex, but she refused. She explained by saying that she would get pregnant, since it was the "right time" for that kind of thing (17.38). So, rejected yet again, he left her there.