The chapter opens inside one of Hai and Grazina's improvised war games. After the night when Hai invented "Sergeant Pepper" to calm her, the two begin staging regular mock gunfights whenever Grazina slips into a wartime episode. Hai learns that the role gives him a workable way to meet Grazina inside her memories instead of fighting them, and the episodes often end abruptly when Grazina returns to the kitchen for tea as if nothing happened.

Over tea, Grazina tells Hai more about her past in Lithuania. She describes her father, a baker who tried to protect the family by feeding German officers when the Nazis arrived, and she explains that the Soviet advance later became the more immediate danger, pushing her family to flee west to avoid deportation and dispossession. Hai listens closely because understanding Grazina's history helps him keep Sergeant Pepper believable, but he also sees how trauma, bitterness, humor, and random regrets all coexist in her memory.

At HomeMarket, the mood shifts into workplace comedy. The crew jokes about Russia's Bugs Bunny tattoo and BJ's birthmark before BJ orders Hai and Maureen to handle Peace Treaty Day, the ritual food exchange with rival Panetta. In the freezer and then on the drive, Maureen explains the rivalry, mocks Panetta's fake refinement, drinks from a flask, and launches into an elaborate hollow-earth conspiracy about reptilians in Antarctica secretly feeding on human suffering.

The van ride becomes more intimate when Hai notices Maureen's Star Wars watch. Maureen reveals that it belonged to her son, Paul, who died of leukemia in 1999, and her joking, abrasive manner gives way to anger at empty condolences and the long afterlife of grief, debt, and loneliness. When Hai asks where Paul is now, Maureen insists he is with God, showing that her wild theories and her faith exist side by side rather than canceling each other out.

At Panetta, Hai and Maureen meet smug employees and a performatively friendly manager, Sam, who ceremonially honors the exchange while guarding the fresh pastries. Maureen is distracted when she runs into Nacho, a Sysco truck driver and casual lover, and she disappears with him while Hai oversees the transfer. Back at HomeMarket, the Panetta shipment turns out to be mostly salads, confirming Maureen's complaints. Sitting outside afterward, Maureen jokes about sleeping with Nacho, then admits that she once believed death should mean something but Paul's death did not deliver any higher meaning. Sharing the secret chocolate croissants, Hai and Maureen find a brief sweetness that does not solve grief but momentarily stands against it.