In these concluding sentences, Bennett jumps forward in time, saying that Nadia is suddenly “her mother’s age,” then “double her [mother’s] age,” then the same age as the Mothers themselves. As such, readers feel Nadia’s life rapidly “unspooling” from their grasp, forcing them into further uncertainty regarding what has become of her. Amidst this uncertainty, the Mothers say, “You’re our mother,” implying that the readers have assumed the position of the storytellers. Readers have inherited the Mothers’ desire to know and tell Nadia’s life story, and as this impulse toward narration “climb[s]” through them, the novel itself ends. In turn, readers are left holding a mess of “colorful threads”—the strands of an unfinished story.