Summary
The third part of the book opens with a recounting of various legends about cranes. The book then shifts perspectives and focuses back on Karin. Karin thinks about how Weber is not what she expected. She is shocked by his coldness and feels disappointed that he does not live up to the image of the person she expected from his books. Later she and Mark watch a television broadcast of a reading Weber did.
Weber returns to New York. He feels that something is off in his marriage, but cannot put his finger on exactly what it is. Meanwhile, Mark is discharged from the hospital. Karin and Daniel restore Mark's home to its original, chaotic condition, undoing the cleaning she had done while she was living there. Karin worries about what to do next, as she prepares for him to return. Mark gets to the house and is immediately suspicious of what he perceives to have changed. He doesn't believe his home is really his home. His dog, Blackie, runs up to meet him. He pets him, despite still believing he is an imposter too.
Mark becomes increasingly certain someone is after him. He thinks that everyone, including Karin and the staff at the hospital, are attempting to cover up what is being done to him. Bonnie comes to visit him and he enjoys her company, despite her repeated attempts to get him to convert to Christianity. Karin also stops by and he thinks back on the amount of time she has spent coming over with groceries and cooking for him. He remains distrustful of her and remains steadfast in his certainty that she is not his sister.
Karin writes Weber a second time, saying that Mark has continued to deteriorate and is now even more obsessive and paranoid. She also talks to Dr. Hayes, Mark's doctor. He tells her to bring Mark in for examination but she says that now that he is living alone again, she can't compel him to do it. Hayes offers little assistance. Karin also coordinates with Duane and Tommy to try and do her best to assist Mark in his recovery. She visits Mark in his home; at one point, while watching him play video games, she sees that he looks as lost as she feels.
Weber begins to sense that his life has gotten off-track. He has an awkward phone conversation with his daughter, Jessica, on his birthday. He attends a reception for his job and feels awkward and out of place the whole time. At the same time, back in Kearney, Karin tries to figure out just how much Mark has changed since the accident. She visits him often, and she usually finds him sitting and watching television. She begins taking him to cognitive behavioral therapy, but he shows no signs of improvement.
Barbara also continues to see Mark. Karin is envious of how good she is at handling Mark and how well she is able to comfort him. They fall into a routine with Mark's visits from his friends and Barbara. Karin remains disheartened by the situation but is glad Mark lets her take him to therapy. At his request, she drives him out to North Line Road one morning to try and reconstruct the events of the accident. He experiences some flashes of memory, but is ultimately unable to extract anything meaningful from the experience. Later, he again confronts Karin, demanding to know how she really is. She bursts into tears and calls Bonnie.
Karin takes Daniel out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. They discuss Mark's condition while Daniel balks at the prices on the menu and asks for a plate of raw, uncooked carrots. Karin is embarrassed by his behavior and also thinks he is flirting with the waitress. They end up having a disagreement. Weber receives Karin's follow-up email about Mark. He plans to make a subsequent visit to Nebraska, much to his wife's surprise and disappointment.
Analysis
In the beginning of the third section, Karin reflects on how the Weber that she met in person does not reflect the person she expected. Based on the way he wrote his books, she assumed he was brilliant and confident, and hoped that he would be able to cure Mark. Weber’s cold demeanor and failure to bring about any real change in Mark shake Karin’s belief in him. She thinks, in a manner not dissimilar to Mark, that there are multiple versions of him: the strange, removed man she met and the confidently warm person who authored his celebrated books. Karin wants to believe that Weber can help her brother, but cannot connect the two versions of him.
Origin also plays an important role in this section of the book. As Karin’s relationship with Daniel continues, she feels herself slipping into old patterns with him. This culminates in a disagreement with Daniel while they are out to eat. While things get smoothed over, Karin senses that their relationship is treading old ground. She suffers the feeling once again that nothing in Kearney ever changes meaningfully. She begins to question her purpose in town as she feels that she cannot save Mark and cannot avoid slipping into the patterns of her past. Karin's sections of the book provide the fullest backstory of her and Mark's past. They contain a number of details about Karin and Mark's family life, as well as moments from her relationships with both Daniel and Karsh. Unlike Mark, who, for the duration of the novel, is mostly concerned with the present and immediate past, Karin spends time reflecting on her personal history in Kearney, trying to assess whether or not things will ever really change. She finds that, for the most part, they do not and will not.
The mind is a key theme in this section. Mark's condition continues to get worse. He is afflicted with a mounting sense of paranoia, as he now not only believes Karen and Blackie are imposters, but that there is an active conspiracy that is currently at work against him. He becomes obsessed with decoding the note left with him at the hospital and also with reconstructing the events of that night. While his perception of imposters fits with the standard Capgras symptoms, his spiral into more elaborate delusions makes Karin feel more and more worried. His condition, in all the frustration and pain that it causes, proves to be continually unpredictable. Neither Hayes, Weber, or Karin can make sense of what Mark is thinking, or what he will do next. While the style of his sections has shifted, with longer, more coherent sentences, it still indicates the damage his mind has sustained. It leaps wildly from conclusion to conclusion, fixating on moments from the accident, at the hospital, or in the company of "Kopy Karin." Powers continues to show the reader how this injury has warped Mark's thought process, trapping him in a loop of paranoia and anger.
Care is another major theme in this part of the novel. Karen takes Mark to therapy, despite his persistent belief that she is an imposter. She continues to show up for Mark, regularly dropping off groceries and cooking for him. She even goes so far as to drive him back to North Line Road when he asks for her help. She cherishes these moments, as they give her hope that he is momentarily letting his guard down and might slowly begin to let her back into his life. Her endurance in these moments indicates the strength of their bond. Despite the circumstances, and her despair at his condition, she continues to care for him diligently, even when he pushes her away.
The third section of the book shows the characters hitting a wall. Karin is unable to convince Mark she is not an imposter and her relationship with Daniel appears to flounder. Weber feels unsatisfied with his career and his marriage. Mark's condition continues to get worse. Satisfaction and simple answers elude them. None of them are able to find meaning in what they are doing, whether it is writing a book, caring for an ill sibling, or trying to uncover a memory. They are uncertain of the roles they are filling and afraid of what they are failing to do. Structurally, the book reflects these concerns; while Karin's passages linger on the past, Mark's focus on the conspiracy he believes has been set against him, and Weber hides behind the mantle of professionalism and scientific vocabulary. The narrator moves between these perspectives to show how each character is caught in their own particular anxieties, unable to communicate with the people around them. Unlike the cranes, they do not have access to some kind of unifying purpose, and so the language in their sections is correspondingly less clear.
