 During the next twenty years Agate receives her doctorate degree, has a son named Boris, and becomes a successful professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.Constantly living with Joe’s put downs, harassments, and minimization of the trauma she endured in the war, Agate represses her feelings of depression and tries to carry on with her life.Though they are separated for much of their adult life, Agate and Beate rejoin each other when Beate’s husband Uldis dies alone and penniless from alcohol poisoning.