Kit quickly packs for her new live-in assignment, taking only a medical bag, a suitcase, and a box of books. The items reflect her life and losses: the worn medical bag came from her parents when she first became a caregiver, and the books belonged to her mother. Although Kit remembers her mother saying that books keep a person from being alone, Kit knows her recent months of suspension have been defined by isolation.

Before leaving, Kit checks that she can avoid her father, Pat, who has come home for lunch. Since her suspension began, Kit and Pat have largely lived around each other in silence, and Kit has also become aware that Pat is secretly seeing another woman. As Kit carries her things to the car, Kenny, the unemployed twenty-year-old neighbor she has been casually sleeping with, stops her and asks if she is moving out.

Kit tells Kenny she has a new assignment but does not reveal that her patient is Lenora Hope. Kenny asks for a final sexual encounter, and Kit refuses because her father is inside and she needs to leave. Kit reflects on how their arrangement began out of boredom, loneliness, and mutual availability during her suspension. Even though the relationship was never romantic, Kenny had been a temporary answer to her emptiness, so his easy departure still hurts.

Kit then goes back inside to tell Pat she is leaving and that she has been assigned to care for a stroke victim on the Cliffs. She again withholds Lenora Hope's name, fearing Pat's judgment. Pat responds with indifference, shows no curiosity or pride, and even tells Kit there is no need for her to check in. When Kit waits for any sign of feeling from him and gets only silence, she leaves without saying goodbye, feeling not just unloved but invisible.