Summary

In Chapter X, Li recalls writing emails with her friend Brigid the day after James’s death, informing people about what had happened. Li compares the days immediately after a child’s death to the days immediately after a child’s birth, commenting on the exhaustion and the realization that there is no choice except to carry on with life. She recalls James learning to read at a precociously young age.

In Chapter XI, Li continues the comparison between the birth of a child and the death of a child. She writes that being a first time mother is hard, but the birth of a second child is easier because it is more familiar and you have learned about how to cope. She writes that this is also the case with the death of a second child and that the most...