A few years after leaving the hospital, Lucy sees the artist professor she dated in college at a gallery opening. Lucy and her husband fight before the event over her husband’s friendship with another woman. Lucy feels self-conscious about what she wore to the event and the artist’s judgment of her clothing.

Lucy attends a panel at the library to see Sarah speak. The panel discusses “the idea of fiction: what it was” (106). Sarah recounts the backlash she received about a fictional presidential figure she wrote about in her book. She shares that “her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tell us who we are and what we think and what we do” (107). Inspired by this, Lucy begins writing this story later that evening.

Strout returns to Lucy in the hospital with her mother. Upset, Lucy tries not to cry by squeezing her leg so hard that she bruises herself. The next morning, her doctor notices the bruise. After Lucy begins crying, he wipes away a tear and comforts her.