Summary

The chapter opens with Toby returning to Ivy House after Hugo’s death. Toby spends a few days alone in the house, feeling guilty over Hugo’s death. While he acknowledges that Hugo would have died anyway, he reasons that Hugo would have died at home in comfort, rather than in the sterile and dehumanizing environment of the hospital, if it were not for the investigation and Toby’s decision to confide in Hugo over breakfast which prompted Hugo’s confession to the police.

Toby’s mother asks him for advice regarding how to clothe Hugo’s body for his burial, at which point Toby remembers that Hugo asked to be cremated. At the funeral, Hugo’s cremation is awkward and anticlimactic. Following the funeral, the family hosts a reception at Ivy House.

Over the next few days, Toby considers his own future and...