Cherry narrates the devastating aftermath of Ned's sudden death from a heart attack. Despite considering herself experienced with loss, she finds this grief unmanageable—big, slippery, and mean. On the day Ned died, she called her ex-husband David, a cardiologist, as if he could offer a solution. David explained that half of all cardiac deaths occur in people with no prior symptoms and that the cardiologist Ned missed might or might not have saved him. He expressed sincere condolences.

Ned's funeral in Sydney was large and well-attended, with former students—some in their fifties—traveling from as far as the UK to honor a teacher who changed their lives. Cherry kept instinctively looking for Jill and Bert before remembering they had also died. She reflects on the crushing unfairness of losing Ned, Jill, and Bert in such close succession, acknowledging that her feeling of injustice exemplifies the just-world fallacy. Jill and Bert had a separate large funeral in Hobart the day after Ned's, which Cherry could not attend.

Cherry returned home, sold her house, gave away Ned's clothes and her first wedding dress, and bought a new home in Battery Point sight unseen. She attempted to manage her grief methodically—taking walks, booking massages—but found that experience with loss provides no advantage. She woke crying, went to bed crying, and sometimes felt physical pain so intense it resembled medieval torture. She neglected water intake and ignored calls from Ivy in America, though Ivy persistently left messages.

Practical matters compounded her anguish. She handled Ned's paperwork with cold efficiency but struggled to cancel his gym membership due to a policy requiring the member to appear in person. After weeks of fruitless calls, Cherry drove to the gym with Ned's ashes in a Styrofoam box and slammed them on the counter, demanding cancellation. The receptionist and a muscular young man Ned had been tutoring both broke down in tears upon learning of his death—Ned had been beloved at the gym, and Cherry's earlier calls had gone to an impersonal central call center.

At a grocery store afterward, Cherry accidentally bought pistachios—Ned's favorite—then abandoned her shopping entirely when Monte Carlo biscuits triggered memories of Jill and Bert. She ate nothing that night and barely drank water. The next day, she took a taxi to the airport, preparing to fly to Sydney with Ned's ashes to scatter them at a scenic lookout chosen by Ned's brother Tony.