Fire Exit

Elizabeth finally returns home. Charles sees her shoveling outside her parents’ house one day. When she finishes, he watches her grab a folding chair out of their shed and open it in the middle of the driveway. She sits down, facing Charles’s house, and lights a cigarette. Silently, she smokes and stares in his direction. Although he would like to stay and watch her, he must go check on Louise, who is doing poorly. She eats a healthy amount of food, but she is even more confused than she usually is. She is also combative and repeatedly tells Charles to stop talking to her. 

Giving Louise some space, Charles goes into the kitchen to do the dishes. There, he hears on the television that an Indigenous woman has gone missing. He panics because he is sure that the missing woman is his daughter. He asks the neighbor to watch his mother and goes looking for Elizabeth. At Mary and Roger’s house, he sees what looks like a woman’s tracks in the snow but does not find his daughter. Mary returns home and insists that he come inside. There, she tells him that she and Roger told Elizabeth the truth about Charles and that it upset her greatly. Charles is shocked, but Mary explains that she was afraid that Charles himself would tell her, which would reflect poorly on her and Roger. Worried, Charles leaves Mary’s. He finds the small, woman-sized prints and follows them. They lead directly to his house and up his front steps. Inside, he finds wet tracks: Elizabeth had been there.

Several law enforcement officials from multiple agencies converge on Mary and Roger’s house. They all set out looking for Elizabeth, although the weather has deteriorated and conditions are not ideal for search and rescue. They are initially unsuccessful in their endeavor, and the mood sours as the hours pass without any sign of Elizabeth. Charles stumbles through thin ice on the river, ripping his pants and tearing his leg open. Still, he presses on, hoping to find some clue as to where Elizabeth might have gone. When the group smells smoke, Charles instantly realizes that it is coming from Fredrick’s abandoned house. The party makes their way there, and Mary sees Elizabeth in one of the windows. The fire crew is unable to put out the blaze because their lines are frozen, so Charles grabs one of their axes and runs into the house. He finds Elizabeth, but she tries to shoot him. She misses just as the fire crew’s hoses start working. As Elizabeth and Charles are soaked with ice-cold water, a beam falls on Charles, and he loses consciousness.

Charles wakes up several days later in the hospital. Bobby is with him. Charles’s concern is mostly for Elizabeth, and he calls Mary. From Mary, he learns that Elizabeth’s legs were burned so badly that she required skin grafts and that she is being housed in a psychiatric unit. She refuses to see or talk to anyone. She has placed only one name on her list of approved visitors, and it is neither Mary nor Roger. Charles wonders if the name is his and vows to find out.

Charles goes to see Elizabeth but arrives after visiting hours have ended and is not permitted into her room. He then heads home and has a night of fitful, restless sleep before heading to Louise’s. She is in a sour mood and does not seem to recognize him. She has soiled her sheets and gotten dressed without showering, and he has difficulty getting her to remove her clothes and clean up before changing into something clean. She seems to regain her memory halfway through their conversation and appears distraught. Charles’s heart aches for her. 

After he gets Louise cleaned up, Charles drives back to the hospital. He and Elizabeth talk. She is clearly upset, and he tries to explain to her why it is important that she know the truth about who she is. He tells her that people are made up of stories and histories and that she must understand that she is part of a set of stories and family histories that she was unaware of. She is clearly angry, but she listens.

Charles returns to Louise’s house, but the door is deadbolted. The neighbor has a key and lets Charles in. There, he finds his mother in bed. She must have retrieved her sheets from the washer after Charles forgot them there the previous day. She made the bed neatly. At first, Charles thinks that she is asleep, but he soon realizes that she has passed away. He sits down and tells her all the stories he’d kept from her throughout the years, including that he was a father and that her “baby” was a toy he’d once purchased for Elizabeth.

Charles buries Louise’s ashes a few months later when the ground has thawed. Mary and Elizabeth come to the ceremony. Charles tells Elizabeth how well she looks and gives her the stuffed elephant, telling her that she has a lot in common with his mother and that Louise would have wanted her to have it.