Summary

Chapter 7 is titled “A Cliffside Conversation Leads to a Lifelong Commitment,” and it opens with an article written decades earlier. The author gives details about Dava and Arvid meeting while in the Peace Corps. Their last night together, they sat on a cliff in Ruiz and talked the entire night, pledging a life together. Dava returned to America. Arvid returned to Sweden and later moved to America to attend college. They married four years later.

The scene returns to December 26. Dava is reeling after Chaitanya's statement, which Dava sees as a betrayal. Dava realizes that the gossip about Tom and Chaitanya will override everything else. She wanted important publications to write about her but “her personal life was fodder” for tabloids (80). She is shocked by how haggard she looks. She hates that she will look like this on her final day. She reminds...