Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Part 5 opens with a note from Elgin to Bee, who is now away at Choate. He sends her love from everyone at Galer Street School and reminds her that nothing that has happened is her fault. He says he remains in close contact with their credit card and cell phone companies but has had no word on Bernadette’s whereabouts. 

Soo-Lin faxes a letter to Audrey, who has left Seattle, announcing that she and Elgin are in love, that she has quit Microsoft, and that Elgin is buying a new house for them, a Craftsman home formerly occupied by Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, though he continues to live in a hotel. Audrey writes back from a motel in Utah, where Kyle, who has been diagnosed with ADHD and borderline personality disorder as well as a substance abuse problem, is enrolled in a wilderness rehab program. Audrey notes that she has begun to attend AA meetings for the parents of children with substance abuse problems. She says that she is “not the same woman who wrote that foolish Christmas poem” (237). 

The next communication from Soo-Lin is a frantic email written from an Internet café in Ushuaia, Argentina, on an aging computer that transposes the letters “p” and “b.” She is there with Elgin because a credit card charge has revealed that “Pernadette went to Antarctica without them!!!” (238). Bernadette’s ship is currently entering the “Drake Bassage” on its return voyage and will dock within 24 hours. Soo-Lin then reveals that she’s “bregnant” with Elgin’s child. She explains that the house Elgin is buying is for her, her children, and the new baby, not for her and Elgin to live in together, and that she accompanied Elgin to Ushuaia against his will. She is in a “state of total banic” (239) as to what will happen now that Bernadette has seemingly reappeared.

Soo-Lin’s email is followed by a letter from Bruce Jessup, dean of admissions at Choate, announcing that they have become concerned about Bee. Bee has remained in her room, bringing food back from the dining hall, constantly watching a YouTube video of Josh Groban singing “O Holy Night.” More recently, a manila envelope with no return address has arrived for Bee from Seattle containing correspondence and documents apparently relating to Bernadette’s disappearance and the events that led up to it. Bee is now holed up in her room assembling the contents of the envelope into a “book.” Bruce Jessup recommends that Elgin collect be and return home with her as soon as possible.

Soo-Lin faxes a calmer, more collected letter to Audrey. The cruise ship has returned from Antarctica, but Bernadette was not on board, though her passport was on the ship. However, because Antarctica is not a country and has no government, there is no way to indicate whether Bernadette ever arrived there. Soo-Lin and Elgin call Agent Strang from a payphone on the dock, and Strang puts them in touch with a maritime lawyer, who explains that Antarctic waters are a legal gray area exempt from the usual laws governing international waters, further complicating any possible search, and the cruise ship is registered for convenience in Liberia. A search of the ship with a thermal ray used to detect stowaways finds no one. The only possible clue is a notepad from Bernadette’s cabin bearing the imprint of a letter written on a missing page. The conclusion is that Bernadette jumped or fell off the ship, probably while drunk.

Elgin and Soo-Lin have returned to Seattle, but Elgin has had to leave immediately for Choate after finding a flurry of concerned voicemails. Audrey responds that the news about Bernadette is “unsettling” and asks to see the captain’s report when Soo-Lin receives it.

Soo-Lin faxes Audrey the captain’s report, a letter from the owner of the cruise company, and a forensic analysis of the indentations left by the last letter written on the notepad from Bernadette’s cabin. These items are preceded by a letter from Soo-Lin herself saying that Elgin has brought Bee home from Choate. However, Bee, who now knows about the developing relationship between her father and Soo-Lin thanks to the package of documents, is living in Bernadette’s trailer, angry with her father and refusing to go anywhere near Soo-Lin. Soo-Lin speculates that Kyle must have sent the documents to Bee, as he was one of the few people with access to all of them.

The captain’s report shows that Bernadette boarded the ship and charged over $400 on clothing and toiletries from the gift shop. Records show that she regularly disembarked during the day, returning in the evening to order large quantities of wine and of a drink called the Pink Penguin on a tab in the ship’s bar. Her absence from the ship was discovered when she failed to pay her bar bill or gift shop charges at the end of the voyage. The forensic analysis of the notepad reveals Bernadette wrote a letter ending “Love, Mom,” in which the most frequently repeated words were “Audrey Griffin” (254). The letter included the phrases “Audrey Griffin is the devil” and “Audrey Griffin is an angel” (254). 

Audrey faxes a letter to her husband, Warren, back in Seattle, asking him to be on the lookout for any possible communications from Bernadette Fox. Audrey reveals that she met Dr. Kurtz when she tried to bring Soo-Lin dinner at Microsoft. After Soo-Lin lied about Dr. Kurtz’s identity, Audrey looked through Soo-Lin’s bag and found the FBI file containing all of Bernadette’s online correspondence, along with Post-it notes from Soo-Lin and Elgin, discussing the plan to have Bernadette committed to Madrona Hill. Audrey is stunned by the realization that her actions, including her “lies and exaggerations,” could be responsible for “a mother being locked up” (256).

Audrey describes how she then photocopied the entire file of documents, filling it out with her own notes and correspondence relating to events leading up to the mudslide, hoping to create a dossier that will clear Bernadette of any blame. Anxious to know more about the planned intervention, she has Kyle hack into Soo-Lin’s and Elgin’s computers. On the way to Bernadette’s dentist’s office, hoping to halt the intervention, she passes the Branches’ house and sees the police car, as well as Soo-Lin’s Subaru, in the drive. Looking through the windows, Audrey observes the intervention in progress and sees Bernadette head to the bathroom. Audrey uses the ladder left outside the day Ice Cream was trapped in a closet to reach Bernadette and facilitate her escape. 

The two return to Audrey’s house, where Bernadette reads Audrey’s dossier. Audrey supplies Bernadette with clean clothes from boxes of Galer Street giveaways left over from the aborted brunch. Bernadette realizes that she still has her passport in her fishing vest, along with her wallet and phone. She asks Audrey to make sure that Bee receives the documents and leaves. Audrey tells her husband that she mailed the manila envelope of documents to Bee at Choate.

Soo-Lin writes out the story of her “relationship” with Elgin in a “WYP”—standing for “Write Your Part” and pronounced “weep,” as in “WYP and read it” (261)—for her VAV group, later including it in a faxed message to Audrey. She describes how she and Elgin had a one-night stand at the Four Seasons hotel after drinking tequila with Van and watching a slideshow of Elgin’s life Soo-Lin had created to cheer him up. Now she is pregnant by man who is willing to provide for their child but has no interest in a relationship with her. Soo-Lin’s WYP is rejected by the group as too self-pitying. She and Elgin are preparing for their weekly dinner when Bee arrives with a copy of the captain’s report and the letter from the cruise line director. Bee accuses her father of wanting to prove her mother is dead so that he can marry Soo-Lin, whom she calls “Yoko Ono.” Later that night, Elgin tells Soo-Lin that he has promised to take Bee to Antarctica on the last cruise of the Antarctic summer season.