Three weeks into his affair with Beloved, Paul D ponders his servitude under Garner, who allowed so much freedom that the male Sweet Home slaves were deluded into thinking themselves men. After schoolteacher took over the management of Sweet Home, the slaves realized that they had nurtured a false sense of security. Paul D's bitter recriminations return him to the scene of Sixo’s death, when Sixo displayed his strength by refusing to cry out while his body roasted over flames.
Fears for his lost sense of self impel Paul D to seek Sethe at Sawyer's restaurant. She smiles with “pleasure and surprise" when she sees him and hurries to finish her work. Paul D tries to prepare her for the revelation that Beloved has overpowered and sapped his strong sense of independence. The look of resignation in Sethe's eyes tells Paul D that she expects him to leave her. Inexplicably, he decides not to confess his relations with Beloved, instead proposing that he and Sethe conceive a child.
Paul D’s proposal surprises him with its threefold application: A pregnancy would return him to Sethe, salvage his manhood, and break Beloved's hold on him. Sethe cuddles with him on the way home. Snowflakes fall on the couple, and Paul D talks himself into adopting his own suggestion. Joyously, he hoists Sethe on his back and runs toward home.
As usual, Beloved awaits Sethe's return. Holding out a shawl to her mother, Beloved breaks the romantic spell. Concerned for Beloved’s health, Sethe instead wraps her in the shawl. Paul D, angry at being displaced in Sethe's affections, scuffs along behind, "icy cold." Seeing Denver, his other adversary, he thinks, "And whose ally you?"
Sethe settles Paul D’s quandary by inviting his return to her bed. Paul D realizes that, with Sethe's help, "he could put up with two crazy girls." Sethe, remembering the demands of a mother’s love, questions her ability to cope with a fifth child, and she decides that she must decline the offer of another pregnancy. At the same time, Sethe’s mind moves a little closer to accepting that Beloved is the child that she has willed to return from the dead.
In the next scene, as Paul D and Sethe return to the upstairs bed, Denver washes dishes while Beloved sucks her forefinger and whimpers, "Make him go away." With finger and thumb she removes a back tooth and fears that her body will self-destruct. At Denver's urging, Beloved cries, knowing that her security slips away as Paul D and Sethe make love.
