Summary

Vincent hallucinates that Sylvia is alive while Joe weeps on the floor in a pile of Tess’s clothes. Sylvia “disappears,” and Vincent demands to be let out of the house so that he can look for “the girl.” Joe erroneously believes that Vincent has seen Cora and so follows him outside. The reader next finds Vincent hospitalized due to the secondary infection of a cut likely incurred when he was attempting to open abandoned cars. Joe resists the attending physician’s advice to put Vincent back in assisted living. Joe sits in the hospital as Vincent sleeps, then leaves to wander around outside. He sees a roadhouse, reminisces about the racism he faced in his youth, and thinks about what it might be like to pick up a woman now, in a more racially integrated society and as an adult.

While Del...