Brooklyn: Part Three Summary & Analysis

One night in January, Eilis comes home and finds Mrs. Kehoe standing in the doorway of the sitting room. Whispering, Mrs. Kehoe tells Eilis that what she’s about to say cannot be repeated. She then informs her that Miss Keegan is leaving, though she won’t say why. She only says that, as far as she’s concerned, Miss Keegan couldn’t leave sooner. She then says that she wants Eilis to take Miss Keegan’s room, which is in the basement and has its own entrance. It is, she claims, the best room in the house, as it’s very large and warm. Eilis doesn’t know what to say, but Mrs. Kehoe simply tells her to pack her things so that she (Mrs. Kehoe) can furtively fetch them and move them to the basement while Eilis is at work on Monday.

Eilis worries aloud that the other girls in the house will be upset that she’s getting the best room, but Mrs. Kehoe urges her to ignore them. When Mrs. Kehoe dismisses her, she goes upstairs and begins to worry that perhaps the basement room isn’t all that desirable. After all, perhaps Mrs. Kehoe is pawning the room off on Eilis because she’s the only one who doesn’t know any better. Unfortunately, though, there’s nothing she can do even if this is the case, so she reluctantly packs her bags on Sunday and leaves them by her bed, resenting the fact that Mrs. Kehoe has made this decision for her. 

On Monday, Eilis sets out to work. Brooklyn has become so cold that she can’t even imagine a time when it felt comfortable to be outside, and she knows nobody in Ireland would believe her if she told them how frigid America can get. That night, she goes home and Mrs. Kehoe meets her at the door before escorting her silently to the basement bedroom. Inside the room, Eilis finds velvet curtains, a nice bedspread, and beautiful rugs. Overall, the setup is very nice and appealing, and it’s two times larger than her old room, with a desk at which she will be able to sit and do her schoolwork. There is even a fireplace. Seeing how beautiful the room is, Eilis once more worries that the other boarders will be angry with her, but Mrs. Kehoe dismisses this idea, urging her to forget about the matter.

Eilis realizes that Mrs. Kehoe sees her as her ally, clearly thinking that the two of them are separate from everyone else in the house. She finds this assumption disconcerting and resents that Mrs. Kehoe would think such a thing, so she tells her landlady she would prefer to be honest with the others about why she has been placed in this room. In response, Mrs. Kehoe says that honesty isn’t always a good way to handle things. Hearing this, Eilis stares contemptuously at Mrs. Kehoe. Frustrated, Mrs. Kehoe reminds Eilis that there’s a bathroom down the hall before turning and slamming the door on her way out. 

Eilis doesn’t think her housemates will ever believe that she had nothing to do with her room change. Several days after she moves into the basement, Miss McAdam pulls her aside and asks if she heard what happened. When Eilis looks confused, she says that Miss Keegan left because she was followed home several times by a man. Going on, she says that this man exposed himself to Miss Keegan, and she emphasizes the fact that he used to follow her home at night, walking all the way to the basement’s private entrance. She also says that Mrs. Kehoe wanted Miss McAdam herself to take the room but that she refused. She then claims that Mrs. Kehoe put Eilis in the basement because nobody else would take it. As she says this, though, Eilis begins to suspect that this is Miss McAdam’s way of punishing her for getting the best room.

Eilis resents Miss McAdam for trying to scare her, if that is indeed what she’s doing. In the following days, she tries to discern whether or not her fellow lodgers have coordinated against her, but she can’t tell. This keeps her up for several nights, as she fluctuates between blaming Mrs. Kehoe, the other women, and even herself. Eventually, though, she decides to stop thinking about the matter at all.

Around this time, Father Flood organizes a weekly dance at the church, saying that it will be open to everyone. This excites Diana and Patty, but Mrs. Kehoe worries that too many Italian men will start attending the dances. On the day of the first dance, Patty and Diana invite Eilis to come to a bar with them and some friends before going to the dance. Miss McAdam and Sheila Heffernan, on the other hand, want her to go with them, suggesting that they leave directly from the house. In the end, Eilis decides to go with Miss McAdam and Sheila, though what she really wishes is that she could stay home. As she and the other two women make their way toward the church, she finds herself wishing that she had gone with Patty and Diana, since she can sense Miss McAdam and Sheila’s anxiety.

At first, the church is empty, but Patty and Diana soon arrive with their friends and the music begins to pick up. When they enter, Eilis wishes that she were with them and that she could dress like the people in their group. When Diana starts dancing and whirls by Eilis and the older boarders, she closes her eyes and pretends to be too immersed in her contact with a man to notice them. At this point, Miss McAdam declares that they should leave, and Eilis goes with her and Sheila. On the walk back, Miss McAdam says that Diana ought to be “ashamed” of herself, but Eilis says that the man she was dancing with is attractive and good at dancing. She says this because she wants to set herself apart from their judgment, and the comment has the intended effect, as Miss McAdam quickly walks away from her.

That Monday, Miss Fortini brings Eilis to Miss Bartocci’s office, and Miss Bartocci tells her that Bartocci’s will now be allowing people of color to shop in the store. This change, she says, reflects the changes that are happening in Brooklyn, since large numbers of black people are moving to the borough. She then says that they will be selling darker colored nylon stockings and that she wants Eilis to be one of the two saleswomen at the counter where these colors will be sold. Later, Eilis wonders aloud why she was chosen for this job, and the other girl who will be selling the darker nylons says that it’s probably because she’s Irish and, therefore, “different.” 

As the second semester progresses, Eilis gets nervous that she won’t pass Professor Rosenblum’s test, so she works up the courage to ask him after class if he could recommend any books to help her study. A flustered man, he asks if he’s going through the material too quickly, but Eilis says she just wants something to help her study for the final exam, so he writes down the name of a bookstore in Manhattan and the titles of several law books. When she ventures to this store—her first time in Manhattan—she asks the man working there to help her find the books, and he says that he knows Professor Rosenblum. He surprises her by asking, “Can you imagine a country that would want to kill him?” Confused, she asks if he’s referring to World War II, and he says that he’s talking specifically about the Holocaust.

After buying her new law books, Eilis immerses herself in them until dinnertime, at which point she realizes that Miss McAdam and Sheila Heffernan aren’t speaking to her. She wishes she could ask Patty and Diana if she could go to the dance with them, but they don’t invite her and she’s unwilling to bring it up. More than anything, though, she simply wants to skip the dance altogether, but she can’t do this because she pretended to be sick the previous week so she didn’t have to go.

Eilis also learns at dinner that there’s a new boarder living in her old room. Her name is Dolores, and Diana and Miss McAdam come to Eilis’s door that night to talk about her. Though Eilis is surprised to see these two women associating with one another, they tell her that they dislike Dolores because she works as a cleaner and is paying a portion of her rent by cleaning the house. Because Miss McAdam and Diana don’t want people to associate them with such a person, they’ve decided to refuse to eat with her. This is why they’ve come to Eilis, asking her if she’ll join them in their strike. When they say this, Eilis wonders if they once talked about her in a similar way, since they both work office jobs and she doesn’t. With this in mind, she closes the door without answering them.

The next day, Mrs. Kehoe catches Eilis on her way out and asks her to take Dolores to the dance that night. Not knowing what to say, Eilis agrees, regretting her decision all day. That evening, everyone avoids talking about the dance at dinner, and Eilis worries that everyone thinks she offered to take Dolores, wishing that there was some way to tell her housemates that Mrs. Kehoe asked her to do it. Later, she’s surprised by Dolores’s choice to wear a leather jacket—“like a man’s”—to the dance. However, she says nothing, simply smiling and walking out the door with her, dreading what it will be like at the dance with nobody to pass the time with except Dolores.

At the dance, Eilis barely responds to Dolores’s many questions and comments. While standing in the church, she feels awkward as Dolores talks to her about how much she’d like to meet an American man. At one point, Eilis makes eye contact with Patty, who waves her over. Responding to this, she walks over to Patty and Diana’s group, and she and Patty go to the bathroom together. Patty tells her that she looked quite unhappy, so she decided to save her from Dolores’s presence. They then reemerge and join Patty’s group of friends, which includes a young man with an American accent who teaches Eilis how to dance to the band’s swing music.

As Eilis learns new dance steps with Patty’s group of friends, she realizes that another young man is watching her. When she looks at him, she sees that he’s unembarrassed to have been caught looking at her. He isn’t tall, but he’s muscular and handsome. It becomes obvious to Eilis that he isn’t part of Patty’s group of friends, since his clothes aren’t flashy enough. Soon enough, the young man approaches and asks if Eilis is with the man who was showing her how to dance to swing music, and when she says no, he asks her to dance. She says she doesn’t know the steps, but he assures her that nobody actually knows and that the most important thing is to look confident on the dance floor. Going along with this attitude, she agrees, and they dance for the rest of the set.

At the end of the set, the young man introduces himself to Eilis as Tony and offers to buy her a soda. Because she knows that accepting this drink will mean she’ll have to stay with him for the next set, she says yes, thinking that this will be a good way of freeing herself from Dolores, whom she refuses to look at. When they start dancing again, the songs are slow, and though she’s worried about drawing too close to Tony, she realizes that he’s also aware of the distance between them, and she wonders if this is because he’s trying to be respectful or because he doesn’t like her. By the last song of the set, though, he moves closer, and they sway to the music while fully interlocked in one another’s arms.

Tony tells Eilis that he saw her at the church’s first dance but noticed that she wasn’t there the following weekend. When she asks how he knows this, he says, “I looked for you and didn’t see you.” They then dance along to traditional Irish songs even though neither of them know the steps. Afterwards, she agrees to let him walk her home, and he admits to her that he isn’t Irish. He tells her that he’s from Brooklyn but that his family is Italian. Just before Eilis leaves him to enter Mrs. Kehoe’s house, he asks if he can pick her up the following week to get dinner before the dance, and she accepts, liking that this will allow her to go to the dance without having to choose which of her roommates to accompany.

That week, Eilis realizes that she’s actively looking forward to her date with Tony. Although she hasn’t stopped thinking about Ireland, she now only considers it when letters from Rose or her mother arrive. Still, she momentarily forgets what, exactly, she’s looking forward to, and she instinctually assumes that she’s looking forward to going home. When she realizes that what she’s actually excited about is seeing Tony, she finds it odd that she would conflate this feeling with the idea of returning to Ireland.

Over the week, Eilis’s housemates can’t stop talking about Tony, wanting to know who he is and what he does. The fact that Eilis abandoned Dolores has endeared her to the other lodgers once again, and even Dolores doesn’t seem to mind because she understands Eilis’s desire to dance with a handsome man. All of the women say that Tony is good-looking, even if he could be taller or have better shoes. More importantly, they all assume he’s Irish, and Eilis doesn’t say anything to correct them. 

When Tony picks up Eilis on Friday evening, he comes to the front door, accidentally subjecting himself to Mrs. Kehoe’s quick barrage of questions. As fast as she can, Eilis comes to the door, but not before Mrs. Kehoe asks him his name, address, and profession. As he and Eilis walk to the church, Eilis makes him repeat his answers, so he tells her that his full name is Antonio Giuseppe Fiorello, though he told Mrs. Kehoe that his name is Tony McGrath. He also reveals that he’s a plumber. After hearing all of this, Eilis instructs him to come to the basement door if she ever allows him to take her on a date again. By the end of the night, she can’t deny that she likes dancing with him and finds him funny.

In the aftermath of Eilis’s date with Tony, her housemates speak constantly about him. At one point, Mrs. Kehoe goes into another room and Eilis tells the rest of the women that Tony is Italian, trying to sooth Patty and Diana’s discomfort with the fact that none of their friends have heard of him. Hearing this, Miss McAdam declares that she hopes the dances aren’t going to be “inundated with Italians” now that Tony has proven that it’s possible to find available Irish girls at the church. Agreeing, Sheila says that they all should be careful about letting men they don’t know attend their dances, to which Eilis says, “Maybe if we got rid of some of the wallflowers, Sheila, with the sour look on their faces.” In response, Sheila stands up and leaves the room as Diana laughs out loud.

As time passes, Eilis grows closer to Tony, who admits that the reason he came to the church dance in the first place was because he likes Irish girls. Laughing, Eilis asks him if any Irish girl would do, but he says that he would be sad if she hadn’t been there. She then tells him about how homesick she was when she first came to America, explaining that this is why she started taking classes at Brooklyn College. Her studies, she says, actually make her feel happy—a statement that prompts him to ask if he makes her happy. When he asks this, she sees that he’s very serious, and she tells him that he does indeed make her happy, though she changes the subject before he can continue to ask her such sincere questions, fearing that her answers might disappoint him.

Tony begins meeting Eilis after her classes on Thursdays to walk her home, and they also start going to the movies together on Saturdays, in addition to their standing date at the Friday night dances. Whenever he drops her off at home, he kisses her just before Mrs. Kehoe’s house comes into view, and she likes this. She even writes to Rose about him, sending the letter to her office so their mother won’t find out. However, she leaves out that Tony’s a plumber, but this is the first question Rose asks in her return letter, so she’s forced to reveal this bit of information, though she tries to hide it in a long paragraph brimming with other details.

Around this time, Father Flood makes a point of introducing himself to Tony at one of the dances, and Eilis senses that Rose asked him to do this. Although she’s nervous about this encounter at first, it soon becomes clear that Tony is comfortable talking to people like Father Flood, whom he wins over with his polite reverence. Before long, the two men are talking about baseball, having discovered that they’re both Dodgers fans. As their conversation unfolds, Eilis wishes she could show Rose that it’s not always possible in Brooklyn to judge people based on their jobs.

At work, Eilis notices that she’s quickly becoming one of the most experienced saleswoman at the department store, since many of the other employees leave or are fired. She also starts having lunch with Miss Fortini rather frequently, and learns that, like her, Miss Fortini has an Italian boyfriend. Consequently, Miss Fortini tells her what to expect from Italian men and their families, and is impressed when Eilis reveals that Tony—unlike Miss Fortini’s boyfriend—doesn’t take her drinking with his friends and ignore her. For this reason, she tells her to keep him around. 

In the weeks leading up to Eilis’s exams, she begins to get stressed about whether or not she’ll pass Professor Rosenblum’s class, so she stops going to the movies with Tony on Saturdays in order to study. However, she still sees him, and he eagerly talks about all the things they’re going to do in the summer, including going to Dodgers games. One night, he says that he wants their future children to be Dodgers fans, and he’s so excited by this idea that he doesn’t even notice that his comment has terrified Eilis, who suddenly wants to be alone so she can process what he’s just said. Later that night, she thinks about this statement and understands that it’s not all that surprising, since Tony has started telling her that he loves her.

By this point, Tony and Eilis have been dating for five months, so Eilis thinks he has a right to start thinking about marriage. However, she still finds it terrifying that he would assume they’ll be together forever and have children. Still, she knows that their relationship is good, and whenever she has seen an attractive man in public, she only finds herself mildly interested for a moment before the attraction passes. On the Friday night after Tony talks about having children, Eilis quickly thanks him for walking her home and goes inside without kissing him. Instantly, she feels sorry for abandoning him, knowing that he’ll tear himself apart until he sees her the following Thursday. All the same, though, she wishes she could tell him that she doesn’t want to talk about having kids yet, though she fears he’ll think this means she isn’t serious about their relationship.

The following Thursday, Tony comes as usual to walk Eilis home from class. For a moment, she hesitates, having spotted him before he sees her. Not knowing what she’s going to say to him, she sneaks over to a balcony, and she watches him as he waits patiently for her. As she looks at him, she senses that he is “delighted” to be picking her up, and she thinks that what’s so remarkable about him is his willingness to present himself exactly as he is. Thinking this, she rushes downstairs and greets him, and he speaks enthusiastically as they walk back to Mrs. Kehoe’s house—so enthusiastically that Eilis understands that he’s still nervous about their last encounter.

Before Tony and Eilis reach Mrs. Kehoe’s house, Eilis turns to him and admits that she doesn’t know what to say when he says he loves her. She says she thinks about him a lot and that she likes him, adding, “I care for you and maybe I love you too.” The next time he says that he loves her, she says, she might say it back. When he asks if she’s sure, she says yes, and he jumps in the air, yelling, “Holy shit!” and then apologizing for his language. He explains that he thought she was about to break up with him, and he continues to celebrate this good news. Eilis, for her part, asks if she can go home, but he says no, saying that he wants to jump up and down a bit more. Laughing, she tells him to do so quietly.

Eilis finds her exams easy and is relieved to be finished with them. Shortly after she finishes, Tony takes her to dinner at his house to meet his family, warning her that his little brother, Frank, will most likely say something rude or awkward to about their relationship. Eilis asks what he’ll say, but Tony doesn’t know, which is exactly what makes him nervous. Before they arrive, Tony also tells Eilis that the rest of his family members are all much darker skinned than him, but she’s still surprised to see that this is true when they enter the apartment and meet his brothers, Laurence, Maurice, and Frank, along with his parents. Right away, though, Eilis knows she shouldn’t say anything about how different Tony looks, sensing that this is what everyone always talks about when they first meet the family.

Tony’s family lives in a small apartment made up of two rooms. The front room is where they eat dinner with Eilis when she visits, and Frank explains—to the chagrin of his family members—that the room also serves as his parents’ bedroom. At one point, Frank turns to her and says, “We don’t like Irish people,” going on to say that a group of Irish boys once beat up Maurice. The rest of the family yells at him, and his father takes him into the hall to have a stern conversation. Shortly after they sit down to eat, Tony is called away on an emergency plumbing request, and his brothers explain that everyone in the neighborhood calls him when their drains get clogged.

While Tony is gone, Frank whispers to Eilis, asking if Tony has taken her to Coney Island yet. When she says he hasn’t, Frank tells her that Tony took his previous girlfriend to Coney Island but doesn’t like to talk about it because she vomited on the Ferris wheel and broke up with him as a result. Eilis listens with amusement, thinking that Frank is the cutest little boy she’s ever seen. When Tony’s father asks what Frank is saying, Eilis claims that he’s simply telling her about Coney Island in the summer. Pleased that Eilis would cover for him like this, Frank smiles and tells her that he hopes Tony takes her to Coney Island because he thinks she’ll like it.

At work that week, Eilis tells Miss Fortini that Tony is taking her to the beach in Coney Island, and Miss Fortini says that Italian men care what their girlfriends look like in bathing suits. Several days later, Miss Fortini obtains several suits for Eilis, and the two women go to the fitting rooms after work so she can try them on. She feels odd in the outfits, especially when Miss Fortini touches her behind and slides her fingers beneath the elastic, commenting that Eilis will need to shave her bikini line. This scenario repeats itself each time she puts on a new suit, and Miss Fortini positions herself so that Eilis can’t close the curtain when she changes. Feeling Miss Fortini’s searching eyes, Eilis makes a quick decision about the suits and ignores Miss Fortini’s request to try them on a second time.

Eilis receives a letter saying that she passed her exams. Armed with this news, she goes for a walk and feels that everything is overwhelmingly beautiful, noting that she’s never felt so happy in Brooklyn. Tony helps her celebrate by promising to bring her to Coney Island on the subway, which is crowded with other people headed to the beach. When they arrive, there’s hardly any space on the sand, but Eilis and Tony stake out a spot and begin to take off their clothes. Thankfully, Diana has already informed Eilis that people in America don’t change on the beach like they do in Ireland, so she wore her suit under her clothes. Still, she feels vulnerable as she peels off the layers, and she’s grateful that Tony averts his eyes as she does so.

In the water, Eilis swims out into the waves before looping back to Tony, who remains standing in the shallows. He explains to her that he can’t swim, and it soon becomes clear to her what he has in mind: he wants to stand in the waves with the water coming up to his neck while he holds her close. At first, this feels too intimate to her, especially since she can feel his erection straining against her through his swimsuit. Before long, though, she relaxes into this stance, and they spend the afternoon interlocked like this as the waves break over them.

As summer turns to fall and fall turns to winter, Eilis sees more of Tony and his family. She is once again going to night classes, but this doesn’t interfere with her blossoming relationship with Tony, and she even goes to his house for Thanksgiving. When Christmas rolls around, though, she works at the church like the previous year. In the period after this, she spends every day with Tony, and he tells her that he and his brothers have bought a plot of land on Long Island. There is no electricity or plumbing in the area yet, he explains, but all of that is soon to come. He and his brothers plan to build five houses on the land, some of which they’ll rent out. One house, though, could be Eilis and Tony’s if they want it. Although Eilis feels nervous about these plans, she simply smiles and nods.

Eilis writes to Rose and tries to explain just how serious her relationship with Tony is, attempting to convince her sister that she’s not just staying with him because he’s her first boyfriend. In her letters to her mother, though, she continues to say nothing about him. Rose’s response is terse but polite, and she cautions Eilis against making any big decisions, telling her to focus on earning her bookkeeping certificate and finding a job in an office.

Father Flood visits Eilis at work one day and informs her that Rose died in her sleep the night before. As she tries to understand what he’s saying, he tells her that Rose was in seemingly perfect health just yesterday, but that her mother tried to wake her up this morning and was unable. The funeral, he tells her, will take place in two days, though her mother will call her tonight from a nearby parish. Unable to contain her grief, Eilis bursts into tears, saying, “Why did I ever come over here?” and repeating this question over and over as Father Flood reminds her that Rose wanted the best for her. Still, she says that she wishes she never came to America.

When her mother calls that night, she tells Eilis what it was like to find Rose that morning. According to the doctor, she says, Rose died in her sleep. Apparently, she had been seeing this doctor secretly and neglecting to tell anyone that she had a critical heart condition. The doctor informed Eilis’s mother that there was nothing that could have been done to help her. For this reason, Rose lived her life like there was nothing wrong, though the doctor often told her to “take it easy”—advice she largely ignored. Eilis’s mother then talks about how lonely the house feels, despite the fact that neighbors and family members have been visiting all day. She also promises Eilis that she’ll say goodbye to Rose for her at the funeral the next day.  

Eilis’s mother says she wishes Rose had told her that something was wrong with her heart. She knows that Rose simply didn’t want to worry her, but she still wishes she told her, even if it wouldn’t have changed anything. “I don’t know what to think,” she tells Eilis before promising again to say goodbye to Rose for her the following day. When they hang up, Eilis descends into a fit of tears.

The next day, Eilis goes to a mass that Father Flood holds for Rose. All the while, she thinks about how she’ll never see her sister again and contemplates the fact that anyone she sees on the streets could have died instead of Rose. After the mass, though, she decides to go to work, craving the distraction of the sales floor. She also goes to work the following day, after which she goes to dinner with Tony and talks about her sister’s death, saying that she wishes Rose had told her or her mother about her heart condition. 

Each day, Eilis goes to work and then walks home with Tony. Eventually, she receives a letter from Jack updating her on what things are like at home. He and his brothers have returned to Enniscorthy for the funeral, and because he knows nobody else will be able to write to Eilis, he has taken it upon himself. He notes that he has tried multiple times to draft this letter but keeps ripping it up, which is why he’s decided not to reread what he’s written when he finishes this version. He tells Eilis that their mother is beside herself and lonely, hoping that one of her sons will stay in the house with her even though none of them can leave their jobs. Jack acknowledges that his mother would want him to say that everyone is doing all right, but he can’t bring himself to say this.

Upon reading Jack’s letter, Eilis understands that she has to go home. She even considers taking the subway directly to the harbor and buying a ticket that instant for a transatlantic voyage, but she decides against this. Feeling at a loss, she goes to Tony’s house even though it’s late, and he takes her to a diner, where she shows him the letter. For a while, he simply studies it before saying that he wishes she could have been at Rose’s funeral. His face is so sad, though, that Eilis realizes that showing him the letter was a mistake, because now there’s nothing she’ll be able to do to convince him that she isn’t going to leave him to return to Ireland.

Tony insists upon walking Eilis home. When they arrive at the basement door, they embrace, and she wishes she could promise him that she won’t leave, but then she senses that Tony thinks she should visit Ireland. Not wanting to go inside alone, she silently leads him into her room, where they kiss passionately before moving toward the bed. When he lifts her skirt, she can tell he’s waiting for a sign from her, so she takes off her underwear. When she lets Tony enter her, she’s astounded by how much it hurts and by how he seems to suddenly forget that she’s there, straining deeper and deeper even as she tenses in pain. When they finish, they lie next to each other beneath the covers for a while before having sex again, and though time it’s even more painful this time, Eilis finds herself loving Tony more than ever.

The next day, Eilis is certain that Mrs. Kehoe knows she had Tony over and heard them having sex, since she doesn’t speak when Eilis enters the kitchen. After Mrs. Kehoe leaves, Patty wonders why she’s in a bad mood, and Diana mischievously says that she thinks she knows, though she adds that she “heard nothing.” When Patty asks what she’s talking about, Diana replies, “Nothing. But it sounded lovely.” The next morning, Eilis wakes up and begins to worry how she’ll know if she’s pregnant. She then decides that both she and Tony must go to confession, though she knows she can’t go to Father Flood. Accordingly, Tony suggests that she see an Italian priest, and she agrees to do this as long as the priest understands English.

During confession, the Italian priest asks Eilis if she wants to marry Tony, and though she hesitates, she says that she does but isn’t ready yet. Seeing that she’s deeply sorry for having had sex out of wedlock, the priest takes pity on her and tells her to say only one Hail Mary and to come back in a month. When she returns from confession, there’s a new lock on the basement, so she has to enter through the front door. Once inside, she hears Mrs. Kehoe loudly telling Miss McAdam that she’s going to keep the basement locked, saying, “You wouldn’t know who would be going down there.” That night at dinner, both she and Miss McAdam ignore Eilis.

Shortly thereafter, Eilis receives a letter from her mother, in which her mother talks about how lonely she is in the empty house. And although Eilis continues to keep Tony a secret from her mother in her return letters, she wonders if her mother has found the letters she sent Rose and thus discovered that she’s in a relationship, though nothing her mother has said indicates that this has happened. Meanwhile, she feels as if her relationship with Tony is becoming better and better, as she feels closer to him after the night they spent together. Thankfully, she soon learns that she isn’t pregnant, so this also helps her begin to feel better about having had sex with him; she even thinks back to the experience with fondness.

After mass one Sunday, Eilis notices that Father Flood is avoiding her, so she visits him later that day. When she greets him, it becomes immediately clear that he has spoken with Mrs. Kehoe about her suspicions regarding what went on that night in the basement between Eilis and Tony. Needing something to talk about, Eilis finds herself telling Father Flood that she wants a month off from work so she can visit her mother in Ireland. Hearing this, Father Flood agrees to talk to Mr. Bartocci, at which point Eilis asks him to also talk to Mrs. Kehoe, since she is having problems with her. However, he urges her to talk to Mrs. Kehoe herself, saying that she should simply be kind to her. In return, he says, he will talk to Mr. Bartocci. 

The following Friday, Eilis receives a letter from Father Flood telling her that Mr. Bartocci has agreed to give her a month of unpaid time off and that—assuming she passes her upcoming final exams—they will try to find an office position for her when she returns. That same day, Mrs. Kehoe invites her to have tea, and Eilis graciously accepts. As they sit together, Mrs. Kehoe asks if she would mind if she took off the lock she put on the basement, explaining that she asked a friend’s husband (who is a police officer) to keep an eye on the house, meaning that they won’t need the lock anymore. Eilis tells her that this is a fantastic idea and tells her to thank her friend’s husband.

As exams approach, Eilis tells Tony her plan to visit Ireland for a month. For a long time, he remains silent, but just before dropping her off at Mrs. Kehoe’s house, he asks her to walk around the block. Sitting on an empty stoop, he asks her to marry him before she returns to Ireland. He tells her that it can be a secret and that they can have a ceremony later, when she returns. All he wants, he says, is to be legally married. He tells her that he knows how difficult it will be for her to come back to Brooklyn after she goes home, which is why he’s afraid he’ll lose her. And although Eilis promises that she won’t abandon him, he still wants to get married. After a moment of consideration, then, she agrees.

Eilis and Tony agree to keep their upcoming marriage a secret. However, when she visits his parents’ house for lunch one day, she senses that his family knows, since they’re dressed in nice clothes and acting more formal than usual, though nobody says anything. Still, the family doesn’t allow Frank to speak, quickly cutting him off whenever he opens his mouth. Finally, though, Eilis says she’d like to hear what he has to say, and he simply asks if he can stay in Tony and Eilis’s house in Long Island if the rest of his family is bothering him. As Tony stares into his lap, Eilis tells Frank that he will always be welcome, conspiratorially telling him that she’ll help him “deal” with his family. By the end of lunch, Eilis privately hopes that Tony’s family truly does know about their marriage.

The week before Eilis leaves, she and Tony get legally married and then go to Coney Island. As they look out at the sea, she wonders aloud if they’ll ever tell their children about their initial, secretive marriage, and Tony says that perhaps they’ll tell them on a special anniversary.