Kit tells Lenora the full story behind the suspicion that she killed her mother. When Kathleen McDeere was dying of stomach cancer, Kit moved home to care for her through Gurlain Home Health Aides. Kathleen was in severe pain, and after Kit pushed the doctor to prescribe fentanyl, Kit accidentally left the medication unsecured one night; two weeks later, Kathleen died of an overdose.

Because Kit was both Kathleen's daughter and caregiver, the overdose did not look like a simple mistake. Mr. Gurlain reported Kit after she admitted she had failed to lock the pills away, and Detective Richard Vick brought Kit to the station for what he falsely described as an informal talk. During the taped questioning, Detective Vick focused on Kit's unusual error, her role in getting the prescription, and her admission that part of her felt relieved her mother was no longer suffering, making it clear he suspected deliberate wrongdoing.

Kit asked for a lawyer, and the fallout escalated quickly. A formal investigation began, Kit was suspended, and her public defender warned that she could face involuntary manslaughter or worse if police believed she had forced the pills on her mother. Although the authorities lacked proof, the suspicion remained, and Kit says even her father now seems to believe she is responsible; that estrangement is one reason she is at Hope's End. After settling Lenora into bed, Kit carefully locks away Lenora's medication and is shaken by the feeling that Lenora suspects her too.

The chapter then shifts to Lenora's past, to a miserable birthday dinner at Hope's End attended by Lenora, Miss Baker, Lenora's father, Lenora's sister, and Peter. Lenora's mother is too ill to come downstairs, and the dinner only highlights the family's emotional neglect: Lenora's sister flirts with Peter, and Lenora's father ogles a maid. Later, Lenora visits her bedridden mother, once the beautiful Evangeline Staunton, now frail and dependent on laudanum. Lenora's mother gives her a Paris snow globe and urges Lenora to leave Hope's End, see the world, fall in love, and write about her life, then breaks down and drinks deeply from the laudanum bottle after Lenora leaves.