Bee Branch and her father, Elgin Branch, travel to Antarctica in the hope of finding Bernadette Fox, Bee’s missing mother. The voyage is both an attempt by Elgin to reconnect with his daughter and a search Bee conceals beneath the language of closure. Once they reach the ship, rumors about Bernadette’s fate deepen the uncertainty rather than resolve it.

Causes and Departure

The journey becomes possible after Elgin tells Soo-Lin Lee-Segal that he has promised Bee a trip to Antarctica. Soo-Lin cannot travel there, and Elgin acknowledges that the plan belongs to Bee: she thinks it will help her find closure. He also explains that going is the only way Bee will let him spend time with her, and that he misses her. The trip therefore begins with two different stakes: Bee’s need to pursue her mother’s disappearance and Elgin’s hope of recovering time with his daughter.

Practical circumstances accelerate the decision. The last ship of the season is due to leave in two days, there is room aboard, and a travel credit will otherwise expire. Elgin says he owes Bee the trip and insists that she is a good kid. Soo-Lin understands that he will go, even as she regards the departure as tragic. Her account places the decision in the aftermath of Elgin’s affair and the strain it has brought to the family, but the immediate reason he gives is his longing to be with Bee.

The journey does not erase their estrangement. During the flight to Santiago, Bee experiences first-class travel for the first time and sleeps for ten hours. Elgin warns her not to get used to the luxury. She smiles, then remembers that she hates him and turns away. The small reversal makes clear that shared travel is not yet reconciliation: even a moment of pleasure is interrupted by the anger she carries toward her father.

Arrival in Ushuaia

From Santiago, Bee and Elgin take a charter plane to Ushuaia, Argentina, then travel by bus through the city to the dock. Bee describes the low houses, Spanish-style roofs, mud yards, and rusty swing sets before the passengers enter an immigration building divided by a long wall of glass. Travelers disembarking from the previous voyage pass on the other side, offering gestures of encouragement to the people waiting to board. Their enthusiasm makes the upcoming expedition feel vivid and imminent, but Bee’s attention is fixed on the ship and the possibility of reaching Bernadette.

A crowd recognizes Buzz Aldrin, who is waiting behind the glass in a leather bomber jacket covered with NASA patches. Bee jokes to herself that she will tell her friend Kennedy she visited him in prison. The encounter briefly lends the departure the air of an adventure, but the more consequential threshold is the dock. After passports are stamped, passengers are directed along a white line toward the captain. Bee runs ahead, introduces herself as Bernadette’s daughter, and asks for a captain whose name she has mistaken. The name badge identifies Captain Jorges Varela, not the person she expected. Her eagerness exposes how urgently she wants the ship to connect her with her mother.

The Search Beneath the Promise of Closure

When Elgin catches up, Bee says that seeing pictures of the Allegra has given her a sense of closure. She later admits that this was a lie: looking at a ship could not provide closure, and the idea itself felt offensive because it suggested forgetting Bernadette. Bee had learned that invoking closure could persuade her father to let her sleep in her mother’s Airstream, stay out of school, and travel to Antarctica. Her real purpose is explicit: she is going to find Bernadette.

The lie gives Bee access to the search, but it also reveals the distance between father and daughter. Elgin has accepted the explanation that makes the trip legible to him, while Bee withholds what she most wants from him. Their shared cabin extends this uneasy arrangement into daily life: Elgin begins unpacking and assigns himself drawers and one side of the closet, dividing the small domestic space as if the voyage were an ordinary trip. The orderly routine contrasts with the unresolved questions that have brought them aboard.

Rumors and Uncertainty Aboard the Ship

Bee begins asking the expedition staff what they know about Bernadette. She approaches Charlie, a naturalist who joined in mid-January rather than on the trip that left just after Christmas, and asks about her mother. That distinction matters: Charlie was not aboard the voyage on which Bernadette disappeared and cannot offer firsthand knowledge of what happened. Bee then asks another naturalist, Frog, about the New Year’s trip. Frog responds with the rumor that Bernadette killed herself; Bee rejects the claim, while Charlie cautions that nobody knows what happened.

The exchange gives Bee no answer, only a contested story and an explicit acknowledgment of uncertainty. Her search has moved from hope attached to the ship to questions directed at the people who might know its history. The journey’s emotional movement is similarly unresolved: Elgin has acted on his wish to spend time with Bee, but she remains angry and keeps her true objective from him. Antarctica is not a promised cure for their estrangement or for her grief; it is the place where Bee hopes to turn absence into evidence and find her mother.