Veronica serves beverages to the first-class passengers while she thinks about the harassment and inequality she has faced in her job. As she finishes the service, Mark arrives in the plane galley to ask her out. Meanwhile, Crispin sleeps and dreams about his childhood in a cramped Maine home, where his older brother physically and verbally abused him.

In coach, Florida looks at the people sleeping around her. She hopes to stay in touch with Linda and to be a mother figure for her. Florida fantasizes about whale watching with Linda and Gary. 

Edward and Shay continue to read through the letters in John’s garage. Almost all of them ask Edward to do something in memory of the people who died on the plane, from taking up new hobbies to writing letters to their children. When he goes to bed the first night of reading the letters, Edward slides “toward sleep like a child downhill on a sled. He hasn’t experienced this feeling since his family died, and it’s accompanied by an explosion of relief” (239). The letters are allowing him to begin healing.

Edward’s exhaustion at school the next day causes Shay to implement rules on reading the letters, which include reading only 10 per day.