Summary

Through one of the residents in the Gardens, René discovers that Vasilia has been poisoning Nero in order to ensure her child gets all the inheritance. René realizes that Nero’s health has been in steady decline since the loss of Apu and D, and suspects the neighbour may be correct. He thinks that he did not plan “to develop [a] storyline to include an attempted murder, but this is what stories will do to you… take off in unexpected directions” (311). René then realizes that they are “all trapped in Vasilia’s charade, the child most of all, the child was her winning move” (313).

René then reveals that after D’s death, Nero and Riya had grown very close. After D’s suicide, Riya quit her job at the Museum of Identity, saying the museum “should be a soft place for understanding...