Sally and Lewyn go to Cornell, their entrance facilitated by Salo’s donation of several paintings from his parents’ art collection. When they leave, Harrison barely looks up from his book to say goodbye. Harrison will go to Roarke, a school that no one at Walden had heard of, although later he will transfer to Harvard. When Johanna and Salo take Sally and Lewyn to Ithaca, for the first time the children realize their distance from New York City.

When Sally and Lewyn split up to find their dorm rooms, Sally realizes that, for the first time, she is truly separate from her siblings, and is glad because she wants to do college alone. Although she finds out that Lewyn’s dorm is next to her own, she decides to not tell anyone about his existence. Salo mentions that he had a girlfriend in this dorm when he went to Cornell but does not tell her the story about Mandy. When Sally’s roommate, Rochelle, arrives from Long Island, her mother quizzes Sally about the fact that Sally is from New York City, and Rochelle quickly escorts her out.