Summary

This section includes the following short chapters:

Breakfast

Helen's Not Bullshitting

Downer

The Snowflake

Horizon Line

Helen's Charades

Alleged Earl

Standing in Random Places

Mexico--Day One: Vomitorium

Helen's Pending Contempt

It is 4 p.m. when Sarah arrives home from the art museum and finds her mother, Helen, home from her night shift and eating breakfast. Sarah asks her mom if she remembers Mexico, but her mom is evasive except for the memory of Sarah's sunburn on the last day of their trip. Sarah realizes that this is why her ten-year-old self's skin was peeling at the art museum; she had just returned from that trip. Her mother further avoids any conversation about Bruce, but does realize that something more is going on with Sarah. Helen, however, does not push to find out what it is.

The narrative then switches to the first of...