“I do, actually,” Angus says. “But only half of the treatment is talk therapy. The other half is pharmaceutical.” He smiles shyly. “And it’s working. I feel better.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me this?” Blair asks.

“I guess I was embarrassed,” Angus says. “Ashamed. I didn’t want you to think I was defective. I didn’t want you to regret marrying me…or procreating with me.” He swallows. “I didn’t want you to wish you’d married Joey instead because he’s easy and fun to be with. And then, when I saw the two of you together, I didn’t explain because I wanted you to think I had someone else as well.”

“Kissing Joey was a mistake,” Blair says.

“Trixie explained that to me. She said that Joey was just trying to get even with me for past resentments.”

I don’t know about that, Blair thinks. She and Joey always did have chemistry. Blair is tempted to tell Angus the story of Joey hunting down the whipped cream for her cake, but instead she says, “There’s no reason to be embarrassed about getting help.”

“I’ve been smart my whole life,” Angus says. “And I guess I was angry that I couldn’t find a way to heal myself.”

“Angus, no.”

“Do you know when I finally made the decision to see Trixie? I would feel jealous every time I thought about the astronauts.” He reaches out to caress Blair’s cheek. “And no, not because you think they’re so handsome or because you had their pictures pinned to your dorm-room wall.” He clears his throat. “I was jealous because they got to leave this world. That’s how little I wanted to be here.”

“Angus!” Blair cries.

“I don’t feel that way anymore,” Angus says. “Trixie—Dr. Scofield—has really helped.”

Thank you, Trixie, Blair thinks.

Angus seems softer now than he ever has before. But is he malleable? “Trixie isn’t our only issue, Angus,” Blair says. “I want to go back to school. I want to get my master’s in American literature and become a professor, like you.”

Angus stares at her and she thinks that he may have changed, but not that much. He wants Blair at home, raising the children, dusting the doodads on the shelves, mastering poulet au porto. “We could hire help, I suppose,” he says. “And I’m sure I can learn to change a diaper.”

Blair exhales in frustration. She has been a mother for only eight days, but she’s already realized that her vague, prenatal sense of what children—twins!—would demand was far outpaced by the daily, hourly reality of their needs. “There’s going to be a lot more to it than changing diapers,” she says firmly. “And you have to know that. I’ll need you to be a real partner.” Aren’t you proud of me, Betty Friedan? she thinks. Her heart is pounding and her fists are clenched; she’s aware that the past months of anxiety and unhappiness are coming to a head now, in her grandmother’s foyer, while Angus stands stolidly before her. He takes both her hands in his and fixes her with the steady gaze that first captured her attention back in his Cambridge apartment.

“I get it, Blair,” he says. “I really do. I want to be there for you and for the babies. And I want you to be able to do what makes you happy.”

“I’m going to hold you to that.”

“I love you, Blair.”

She’s not quite ready to say it back. “I’m proud of you,” she says, casting her eyes skyward. “The moon landing, Angus. Truly remarkable.”

“You gave birth,” Angus says. “There’s nothing more remarkable than that.”

She happens to agree with him, but she merely shrugs.

“Can I see our babies?” he asks.

“Right after you kiss me,” Blair says.

And he does and it feels both familiar and foreign. His beard scratches and Blair sinks her fingers into his long hair and tugs. Then she takes his hand and leads him up the stairs.

Both Sides Now (Reprise)

Bill Crimmins moves back to his efficiency on Pine Street. He says it’s only right and Kate agrees, although she fears that now he will stop his efforts to get intelligence about Tiger. She tells him as much and he says, “Katie, don’t be silly. I’m doing everything in my power to find out what I can.”

It’s a generous answer, especially since Bill himself has so recently lost his daughter—again—and not only Lorraine, but Pick as well. Kate asks Bill if he’s heard from them and Bill offers a smile that seems to contain four decades of heartbreak.

August arrives and the household is busy. Angus and Blair are reunited and Angus has some time off before classes at MIT start up in September, and he and Blair decide they went to stay at All’s Fair until Labor Day. Kate is happy for Blair, happy too to have her grandchildren under her roof, even though she has started sleeping with earplugs.

Kirby gets a job three days a week at the front desk of the Gordon Folger Hotel, filling in for a college student whose grandmother suddenly died. Kirby tells Kate that she spent the first half of the summer thinking she wanted to be a political science major, but the Kennedy scandal has left her disenchanted. Now she’s decided on hotel management and plans to take a semester abroad in Switzerland, which is the epicenter of luxury hospitality. She’s hoping Exalta will pay for it.

The days that Kirby isn’t working, she takes Jessie to the beach.

As much as Kate loves seeing her daughters spending time together, she worries that Jessie will grow up too fast. “I don’t want you drinking around your sister,” Kate says. “Or smoking that Mary Jane. Promise me.”

“Promise,” Kirby says with a sly half smile that means God only knows what. “We read, we sleep, we flip over every fifteen minutes, we swim, we take walks and collect shells. We talk.”

Talk about what? Kate wonders. Jessie now knows Kate’s secret and Kate supposes she should be concerned about Jessie spilling the beans, but she isn’t. The secret weighs only half as much now that Kate has shared it. Some days it even feels like the secret’s power has dissipated, like when you turn on the light and find out there’s no monster in the closet.

Kate hasn’t had a drink—or even craved one—for an entire week.