- Back in Los Angeles in 1949, Laura Brown is driving along the Pasadena Freeway in a Chevrolet. Richie is being babysat by a neighbor who lives down the street, and Laura is pretending to run "a last-minute errand related to her husband's birthday" (12.1).
- Back at the house, Laura has everything laid out for Dan's birthday party. She has even finished the second cake, which looks much better than the first (though she still isn't satisfied with her work).
- As she drives, Laura thinks about the kiss she shared with Kitty, and she compares it to the kisses she has shared with her husband. She desires both, she thinks.
- Laura doesn't quite know where she's headed; after toying with a few different ideas, she decides to head into the city. Once there, she figures, she'll check into a hotel room and enjoy a few hours of total privacy before heading back to collect Richie.
- She chooses the Normandy—a clean and not-at-all-sketchy place—and is soon alone in her room. There, she gets herself comfortable on the bed and settles in to continue reading Mrs. Dalloway.
- As Laura reads a passage in which Virginia Woolf's heroine, Clarissa Dalloway, muses about death, she begins to consider the possibility of suicide. She imagines that it might be strangely beautiful to simply step away from life, but she can also imagine how much pain her death would bring to Dan and Richie.
- What comforts Laura most, in the end, is the thought that she could die if she wanted to. She tells herself that she would never do it, but she finds it comforting to know that the possibility is there.