Eggshells

June meets Connie at the airport after her return from Washington. Knowing that her daughter has traveled across the country, become engaged, canceled the wedding, and said goodbye to Mitch in only a few weeks, June offers pizza, ice cream, and every comfort she can imagine. Connie appreciates the care but insists that her whole life did not depend on marrying Mitch and that she is genuinely ready to return to normal work.

At Whit's End, Whit quietly asks Trent and Jared not to question Connie about the breakup. Trent becomes so afraid of upsetting her that he can barely speak. Jared, armed with a little information from school health class, decides that Connie's cheerful behavior must be deep denial and that he is qualified to guide her through grief.

Connie explains that extra time alone in Washington allowed her to think, pray, and renew her focus on God. She eagerly returns to her schedule and asks everyone to stop treating her delicately. Yet their attempts to avoid the subject make every conversation more awkward.

While sorting Whit's neglected mail, Connie finds a letter Mitch sent before their engagement and separation. She predicts his usual comments about the weather and training, then reaches a tender final paragraph about how much he misses her. The words briefly hurt, but she asks Whit not to walk on eggshells and feels better when he gives her ordinary work instead of hovering.

Jared secretly records Connie and interprets each harmless action as a stage of grief. Swatting a fly becomes displaced anger at Mitch, and Connie's normal energy becomes denial. Trent recognizes how foolish the observations are, but he is too nervous to confront Connie himself.

June also doubts that Connie could have processed the breakup so quickly. She screens an absurdly tragic romance in hopes of making Connie cry and open a discussion. Connie sees through the plan. June admits that she once prolonged her own pain by refusing to grieve, but Connie reminds her that they are different people and that she has already faced what happened.

Jared escalates his experiment with homemade inkblots that plainly show broken hearts, dead flowers, damaged engagement rings, and ruined wedding cakes. Connie realizes what he is doing and angrily tells him that anyone who wants to ask about Mitch should simply ask rather than spying and manipulating her.

Jared responds by arranging a group meeting with June, Whit, Trent, and an armless papier-mâché figure representing Mitch. He urges Connie to express anger by striking it, while June gives the figure a weak punch on her daughter's behalf. Jared incorrectly repeats the rumor that Mitch abandoned Connie at the altar, and Connie firmly corrects him: ending the engagement was a mutual decision.

Connie finally tells everyone that they are trying to force her through feelings she has already experienced in Washington. She did pass through denial and pain, but Mitch's absence led her to depend more deeply on God and rediscover that her life is larger than the relationship. Their assumptions have kept her from moving forward more than her own grief has.

Whit apologizes and recalls making the same mistake when his daughter Jana divorced. Because she did not grieve with him, he assumed she was not grieving at all. He realizes that he feels left out of an important part of Connie's life and simply wishes he could have cried beside the young woman he loves like a daughter.

Connie assures Whit that she will need his support in other painful seasons, and she recognizes that June's worry also grows from love. They end the evening together with the melodramatic movie and its sequel. Connie and June shed tears while Whit suffers through the ridiculous plot, but he remains because being present matters more than understanding their choice of film.