Ted’s narration is interrupted by a fit of sneezing, which embarrasses him and amuses Louisa. The conductor with tattoos passes by and blesses him, while Louisa jokingly hints Ted was once in prison to make him seem “dangerous,” which Ted resents. Mortified, Ted flees to the bathroom, where he confronts his reflection and spirals into self-criticism, recalling his mother’s rigid views on masculinity and his habit of secretly saving articles about the artist. Overwhelmed by grief, he contemplates abandoning Louisa but immediately runs into her outside the bathroom, where she has been waiting without suspecting he might leave.

They learn the train is delayed for technical reasons and step onto the platform to get air once the dog and crowds pass, revealing Ted’s discomfort around dogs and Louisa’s empathy about phobias. Their banter turns serious when Louisa casually reveals she once broke her arm after being thrown through a window in foster care and then threw the abuser through another window, exposing scars on her arm. Ted apologizes for her childhood and deflects questions about returning to teaching, but Louisa affirms he likely was a good teacher because he got stabbed protecting a student.

Sitting on a bench, Louisa hands Ted a free newspaper she found, which he refuses to touch for hygiene reasons. Ted apologizes for looking at Louisa’s sketch pad earlier, acknowledging that unfinished art is a vulnerable private space. Louisa explains that before a drawing is finished it still feels like it can be fixed and that she likes herself only then, fearing being exposed as a fraud. Ted, claiming ignorance about art, offers sincere encouragement that having something to say matters more than being technically perfect, and tells her she is “not ready yet” but will do something important, someday painting someone else’s “postcard.”

Louisa then opens the found newspaper and sees the obituary: the artist is dead, with “no known family,” and mourners have covered the sidewalk outside his upscale home with candles and roses. Ted and Louisa sit in shared silence, absorbing the loss. A conductor’s call to reboard breaks the moment, and as they walk, Louisa asks if that was where Ted lived with the artist at the end. Ted says yes but explains he could never have stayed there without him, describing the daily tortures of absence—forgotten habits, preserved clothes, and the small rituals that grief would keep reopening.

Louisa tentatively asks whether Ted and the artist were a couple. Ted says no, noting the artist loved someone else, but that they were as close as one can be, in a way that is hard to explain. Louisa understands, saying they loved each other so much they were afraid of breaking each other. Back in their seats as the train departs, Ted reflects that he would have frozen in that apartment without the artist’s eyes on him, and Louisa quietly agrees that this is how grief feels. Ted ends the chapter grateful he did not leave her.