Chapter 19 Summary

Dan Brown blows out his birthday candles, spraying the cake with a few drops of spittle in the process. Rage overtakes Laura at his carelessness with her cake, but she stifles it, tells herself to be pleasant, to keep posing as a wife and mother. She thinks again how nice death would be. Dan puts his arm around his wife, tells her how perfect everything is. She asks her son if he made a wish too. Laura thinks that Richie, like his father, is constantly wishing, not for something more, but for a continuance of what they already have. Laura has an epiphany in the act of laying the dinner plates on the crisp white cloth. She realizes she has succeeded, after all; she has obtained perfection in this moment. She feels the moment slipping away and watches as her son makes another...