Tess thought about killing herself once, but she doesn’t feel she deserves pity. She describes her intense sadness after Zoe’s funeral and memorial service, which “wasn’t so much like falling into a deep dark hole as it was like being forced to climb down a ladder along the steep sides” (31). In her memory, Tess wants to feel “more darkness,” so she considers taking her mother’s prescription sleeping pills. The label with her mother’s name makes her pause. In her letter, Tess considers how life is both random and connected, predetermined and a matter of chance, in terms of both Zoe’s death and the September 11 attacks. She wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t missed the bus that day or if her mother had never met David while he was smelling a cantaloupe, likening each event to a “domino.”

Em appears in the doorway of the bathroom wearing yellow banana slippers that Zoe used to try to walk in, and Tess returns the pill bottle. Em asks Tess was she was doing, and Tess tells her to go back to bed, but Em tells Tess to go first. Tess realizes that Em knows something was going on and walks past her but decides not to touch her head.