Tova remembers the night Erik died. She returned home from an exercise class while Erik was out, and she made love with her husband. The police came by the next morning and asked Tova where her son was the previous afternoon, but Tova didn’t know. After his death, everything blurred together. She reflects on her house, the same one she grew up in and which her father built himself. The attic is full of things her parents brought to America from Sweden. Tova and Lars used to play together in the attic. Her father renovated the attic and built a better staircase for it so they would have a nicer place to spend time, but Tova and Lars quickly outgrew it.

After Tova moved back into the house with Will and Erik, her mother told her to keep Erik’s childhood things for her grandchildren. After Erik’s death, they needed to replace the window after Will’s “incident” (140). Later they considered selling the house but decided not to. As Tova sleeps beside Cat, she dreams of being cocooned in octopus tentacles.