Summary
Faced with the possibility that Rosie is willing to have sex with him, Don turns to Gene for advice. Don feels nervous due to his lack of sexual experience and begins to research information about sexual activity. He also learns some surprising news from the Dean: Dr. Peter Enticott, one of the men whom Don and Rosie tested as a candidate in the Father Project, is interested in potentially funding Don's research. Don goes to see Rosie, and directly brings up her offer to have sex with him; he is confused when she claims it was all merely a joke. She also says that she does not want to pursue the Father Project any longer. Don is hurt and confused; he throws himself into other activities, but he also tries to contact Rosie repeatedly. He also cannot let go of the Father Project: there are currently 11 possibilities, 2 of whom are dead, and 7 of whom live overseas. For the 9 living men, Don makes up a fictitious research project that requires a genetic sample, and he sends them the information along with a request for a sample. He is also able to obtain a sample from the daughter of one of the deceased doctors.
Don tests the samples and is able to eliminate another 7 candidates. However, one of the possible fathers, Simon Lefebvre, is skeptical and demands more info about the project before he will participate. Don goes through a huge amount of work to create all of the requested documentation and is finally able to obtain a sample. In the meantime, he also learns the Daphne has passed away. She leaves him 10,000 dollars and requests that he use the money for "something irrational." After eliminating Lefebvre, Don tracks down Rosie and tells her that only 3 possible candidates remain. One is deceased (with no children), and the other two men both live in New York and declined to provide samples. Don proposes that he and Rosie go to New York. She immediately refuses but is curious about the three men remaining. Rosie notes that Geoffrey Case, the deceased candidate, had been mentioned by her mother, and her mother was saddened when he died. This makes it seem like he could have been her father.
In order to confirm or eliminate Case, Don drives all night to the retirement home where his mother, Margaret Case, lives. When he arrives, he is struck by her helplessness, and he is hesitant to collect a sample. He eventually does end up with traces of her DNA after he wipes away her tears. Rosie agrees to travel to New York with Don, and at the airport, they discuss their plans. In addition to their two meetings with father candidates, Don wants to spend all of his time at the Museum of Natural History, but Rosie insists that she gets to choose some of their activities as well. Rosie also wants to spend some of their long plane ride learning more about Don. Don pragmatically tells her about his early life: he has a functional but distant relationship with his parents and his brother. His father owns a hardware store in a small town. Don was an excellent student, who was sometimes bullied. He began by studying computer science but eventually shifted to genetics.
In his early twenties, Don met with psychologists and psychiatrists who offered him various diagnoses. Don now believes that none of this was accurate and that they failed to understand the ways in which his brain functioned differently. On his 21st birthday, Don's uncle publicly embarrassed him at a party, and Don resolved to change his life. Don and Rosie complete the rest of their journey uneventfully and arrive in New York. Don immediately takes Rosie to Hermes since he wants to buy a gift for Claudia. Don intends to be purely functional about the purchase, but Rosie gets him to think more creatively and emotionally as he makes his choice. From there, they go to meet the first father candidate: Isaac Esler.
Don and Rosie meet with Isaac and his wife in their home. Don poses as Rosie's boyfriend, Austin, who owns a hardware store. However, Isaac pulls Don aside and reveals that he knows Don's true identity and is suspicious about what he is up to. He tells Don that he knows the truth Don is seeking (i.e. the identity of Rosie's father) and cautions Don about continuing the search. However, Don and Rosie still leave with a DNA sample. The next day, Don reluctantly agrees to let Rosie plan their entire itinerary. He is struck by Rosie's advice to try to be less rigid and live more spontaneously. Over the course of the day, Don and Rosie have a wonderful time together, and Don realizes that Rosie is opening him up to many new experiences.
Analysis
Because he is highly analytical and does not function well in spontaneous situations, Don freezes up and declines when Rosie first offers to have sex with him. However, when he has more time to think about it, Don begins to find the proposal appealing. The problem is that Don doesn't think about Rosie's feelings or social conventions when he blurts out the possibility of them having sex in front of one of Rosie's colleagues. She is clearly embarrassed and presumably still hurt by Don's rejection. By now, Rosie knows that her interactions with Don are likely going to become complicated and she tries to put some distance between them, but Don's stubbornness reveals the depth of his attraction to her. He is even willing to travel across the world! Don keeps clinging to the idea of the Father Project because it veils the fact that he is actually just in love with Rosie. Don doesn't have the self-confidence to believe that Rosie might want to spend time with him without the shared project, and he can't accept the vulnerability of just confessing his feelings and hoping that she reciprocates.
Even while Don tries to maintain distance and control over his interactions with Rosie, readers learn more about his vulnerability and painful history. Don's interaction with Margaret Case shows that he thinks sensitively about other people and can feel empathy for this woman who has lost her family. When readers learn more about Don's history, they also realize that he can felt a lot of pain and ostracism. As a successful adult, Don has set up his life in a way that works for him, and it might seem that his neurological differences don't cause him many negative impacts. However, when he talks about his childhood, it becomes clear that Don has suffered a lot and has been very alienated and lonely.
This revelation about Don's dark history makes it even more significant that Rosie is opening him up to a new world of joyful and spontaneous experiences. The fact that Rosie agrees to go to New York City shows that she sincerely likes spending time with him, and she also puts effort into helping Don relax and be more present. Negotiating their trip and experience of New York shows yet another way in which Don and Rosie balance each other and have a complementary dynamic. Rosie shows an ideal dynamic in her relationship with Don: she sets firm boundaries and insists on having her own needs fairly balanced, but she also thinks about what are realistic goals for him to work on. Rosie respects Don, and expects him to treat her with respect in return.
