After a violent row resulting in disciplinary action from a pacifist teacher, Mrs Beaumont, and spurred by classmate Grace, Henry begrudgingly makes peace with the boy, Paul Jeffries, who (along with his mother) is treated as a pariah due to the belief that the elder Jeffries was a deserter during the second world war.
Later that night, Maureen chides Henry in her convalescence, pointing out that her new marriage would not be legal if the man he met were truly his father, that she would be guilty of the crime of bigamy and that the baby would be born a bastard.
It is apparent upon Grace's intense questioning that Henry's father is a deserter who faked his own death, though he makes the claim that he was an amnesiac.
Henry's grandmother hears the noise and comes downstairs to investigate, declaring it a miracle when she sees her son, who immediately leaves on supposedly urgent business.
Henry runs into his father on the street, who offers to take him under his wing in a nebulous, presumably nonexistent or illegal family business.
Bill convinces Henry to come home, telling him he could have the most precious thing in the world, his mother's love, if he would only take it.
Joey pistol-whips Bill and abducts Maureen and Henry, declaring his hatred for his mother by shoving her away as she offers to come along.
Joey returns, and Henry hits him over the head with a large object, forcing him to reveal that he murdered Paul's father to fake his own death and desert as Ronald caught him looting, and assumed the new identity of Walter Briggs from some paperwork on the office table.
Grandmother Dodge attempts to move out of the house in shame and the family convinces her to stay and settle with her demons.