Elizabeth, numb with guilt and shock, fixates on the leash as the cause of Calvin’s death and refuses to accept it until repeated calls from a mortician and the sight of Calvin’s shirts force reality. She cannot cry, feels perpetual panic, and hears an imagined “boiling water” of trauma.

At the funeral home she brings Calvin’s rowing clothes, which are discarded for a standard suit and added to her bill. The funeral draws rowers and Hastings staff, some quietly gloating. In the cemetery, an intrusive reporter presses for quotes and questions her dog; Elizabeth feigns blindness to deter him and defends Calvin. She sits alone in the front row, then leaves mid-rites and walks six miles home with Six-Thirty.

Back at work, colleagues and Donatti avoid her. She enters Calvin’s sanitized lab to find his notebooks boxed away and only a crate of personal effects remaining. In his lunchbox she discovers a small blue box holding a diamond ring, implying Calvin had planned to propose.

Miss Frask from Personnel interrupts, barring Elizabeth from taking Calvin’s belongings, announcing that the dog can no longer be at Hastings, and dispensing patronizing advice about “coattails,” dating, and quitting science. Frask grants limited bereavement leave as Elizabeth turns nauseous.

Frask produces a newspaper: a funeral-day article that maligns Calvin and misrepresents Elizabeth’s words. Observing Elizabeth’s sickness, Frask deduces and declares that Elizabeth is pregnant. The realization hits Elizabeth as she vomits again, understanding Calvin’s true parting gift.