Crabbe returns to the campsite that night and is surprised that he does not cry for Mary. He sleeps on and off for two days, after which he decides to finally open the pack that contained the secrets Mary did not want him to know. He cries, finally, recognizing that Mary was the only person he ever loved.

Inside the pack is the secret of Mary’s life before the wilderness. Mary was once a history professor at the University of Toronto and married to a physics professor she deeply loved, based on the love letters in the pack. Both were anti-nuclear activists. During a demonstration, her husband suffered a head and spinal injury that would either prove fatal or leave him with paralysis and severe brain damage.

As he reads the documents, Crabbe recalls several important ideas Mary taught him, including the idea that life is neither fair nor logical, and that maturity can never be achieved until a person stops blaming others. He also recalls how she told him, in response to his complaints about his life in Toronto, how lucky he was to have a family, a home, and enough money to have interesting experiences. She told Crabbe that if he did not like his life, it was no one's responsibility but his own to change it.