Day

Nathan goes back inside, where Chess sits with Odin on the couch. Chess asks him if he is prepared for the funeral and to scatter Robbie’s ashes the next day, and Nathan says that he is—even though he does not feel okay about it. Isabel had he and Violet choose the spot to scatter Robbie’s ashes, and Nathan let Violet choose. He wonders if he should tell his mother he’s not happy with it, but then decides he does not want to upset Violet. Lately he has felt like it is his “duty” to look after her more and he tries to upset her less.

Nathan sees his father’s car lights approaching out the window. He realizes that his mother was out there waiting. He thought she had gone out to comfort him—that she had somehow realized how “today and the day before and the day to come evacuate him” (211), that he has not been okay since he let COVID-19 into their home and since Robbie died. He has been seeing a therapist, but he does not have the words to tell her how he feels; he is hoping that someone in his life will understand, but no one ever seems to.

As Dan sits in the car with Violet, he wonders if she is going to get out. He realizes that she has changed since she was sick, more specifically since she called out to him that a man—part dog—was standing in the corner in her room. He hopes that she is just getting older but can’t help to think that she now has a more “tucked-away quality” where she “performs” the way she believes she is supposed to act (213), hiding what she really wants to do and say.

When Violet gets out of the car, she asks Isabel if she has seen Robbie’s ghost. She is not surprised by the question and assures Violet that Robbie’s spirit is there. Isabel also notes the dress that Violet is wearing, a yellow one that no longer fits her, and is annoyed at Dan for allowing her to.

Violet thinks of how her parents think she is “simple,” and she is okay with them believing that. She wore her yellow dress because Robbie bought it for her. She remembers trying it on in the store for the saleswoman and Robbie, who both smiled at her. Years later, Violet will realize it was the first time she became aware of her own “prettiness.”

The cabin in Iceland sits empty. There is a skull on the wall, hanging next to a shelf of old books. There is also an old T-shirt hanging with “Ramones” written on it—which belonged to Dan.

Chess goes out onto the porch and finds Garth. He apologizes for telling her that he loved her earlier. He thinks of how he did not realize when it happened, when their friendship turned into love for him, but he is certain that’s what he feels for her.

Chess thinks about their relationship and how the world expects them to be together because it prefers women to marry men, especially those that have a child. She considers her feelings for Garth and, even though she knows she is not attracted to men, she decides that what she feels is “not nothing and maybe, in its way, is not exactly, not entirely, not love” (223).

Chess reveals to Garth that she got a job offer teaching at Berkeley in California. He is angry that she did not tell him sooner, but she insists that she has not yet decided whether to take the job. She tells Garth to move to California with her, then immediately backtracks. She finds herself being “cruel” to him and wonders why, then realizes it’s because he did what “most men” do: He made his feelings her problem by saying, “Here is my desire, here is my loneliness, what are you going to do about it?” (223). Garth angrily leaves to go for a drive.

Isabel cooks dinner in the kitchen. She takes out Robbie’s phone and chooses a photograph from Iceland, which she then posts on Wolfe’s Instagram. After Robbie’s death, she took over Wolfe’s account and started posting photos of Robbie. In her mind, Robbie and Wolfe met at a party and are happy together in Iceland. Though their meeting and their lives together matter to Isabel, she knows that his followers care little about the “narrative”—just as they don’t care that the two have been in Iceland together for over a year. She thinks of Iceland as an “eternity” that Wolfe and Robbie will share together, outside of time.

Nathan leaves his mother’s house and goes to a lake nearby. He lays on the grass where they plan to put Robbie’s ashes and decides that it is an okay place. He’s surprised that everyone believes him when he says that he is okay—but then realizes that people are happy when there are fewer other people for them to worry about.

As he lays in the grass, he thinks of how “he can’t be forgiven” (227). He gets up and walks to the edge of the lake. He feels how cold the water is and notes how the coldness is what he is most afraid of. However, as he slowly wades into the water—hearing an owl hoot in the distance—he decides that he can overcome the cold. As the water rises above his legs, he hears the owl again and sees a star reflected in the water.

Dan comes into the kitchen and offers to cook dinner for Isabel. She accepts and sits nearby. Dan comments on how nice the kitchen is, and Isabel thinks of how it is the only nice thing about the house. She liked the idea of getting out of Brooklyn and in some way chose the house for Robbie, but she is realizing how many issues the house has.

She also considers how well Dan is taking everything: His music career never really took off, but he was not disappointed when he gave it up again. She expected to have to console him or that he would spend hours in his room, but instead he seemed almost relieved. Similarly, she thought Dan would have a reaction to Garth’s career taking off, something like jealousy when a famous artist bought his Hamlet headdress, but instead Dan seemed unfazed by it.

The two talk about Robbie. Isabel asks if they should have invited Oliver or Adam, but Dan insists that it was a good choice not to. Isabel admits that she is upset that Robbie died without being in love, that there is no boyfriend or husband here now. Dan tells her that he and Robbie loved each other, but that it was never anything sexual. Isabel says that she knows, then brings up the memory of the two of them driving to see the ball of yarn. She thinks of how Robbie came back more confident, with more “conviction,” and truly happy—as if the drive changed him. She tells Dan that maybe Robbie wasn’t in love with Dan, but instead was never able to find the joy from that trip in anyone else.

Dan and Isabel then sit in silence. Dan wonders if Isabel will ever ask him how he is doing. He thinks of how Robbie was “the love of his life,” and asks himself if Isabel “could possibly think that Robbie mattered less to Dan because Dan isn’t gay” (241). As the silence stretches on, he thinks that there might be hope for his and Isabel’s relationship, as they amicably separated and still care for each other. Then, Isabel thanks Dan for being there for her, which is followed by another silence. Isabel thinks of how there is nothing left between them, how they can go on being friendly and raising the children but that their separation is “final.”

Violet goes up to her room. She opens the bedroom window and looks out into the forest, seeing the spirits of the trees and the animals. Since she got sick and saw the man in her bedroom, she is able to see “shadows” in the world, remnants of lives like the one she saw over the dead squirrel on the drive here.

Isabel puts up a photo on Instagram of the view outside the cabin. She can see the slope of the hills, which seem to disappear into the valley below. She writes a “poetic” caption and hesitates the post it—realizing that it is written differently than Wolfe’s usual captions—then decides to post it anyway.

Garth drives on the backroads through the forest. He is angry that he could not find the right words to talk to Chess and realizes now that nothing he says will help his situation. With his career taking off, he also cannot move to California—especially if he is doing so just because that’s where Chess went. He wants to be part of her life and part of Odin’s, not just “peripheral” to it.

Nathan swims out into the lake, overcome by the darkness and the cold. He searches for the star’s reflection but doesn’t see it, so he swims further. He feels as though he can’t go back to his family—not wanting to feel their “warmth” or their sympathies. Instead, he swims, his “destination […] an absence he’s disappearing into, where he’ll swim out of himself and be no one, where he’ll be gone” (250).

Isabel finds Chess outside sitting in a chair. She asks how things are with Garth, and Chess confesses that she thought things would be easier—that she never envisioned Garth falling in love or wanting to be a father. Isabel compares it to her situation, saying that she also thought things would be easier. Isabel suggests that they should become better friends, but Chess admits that they don’t really like each other. Isabel agrees but says that that shouldn’t “stop [them] from being friends”—as things get “lonely” and “tired” (252). Chess agrees, and Isabel says they should get back inside for dinner.

The two sit together a little bit longer. They both are going to continue their lives alone, even though they have people in it, always in a “vigilant” state—worried about the future for their children.

As Violet stands at the window, she sees Robbie—a slightly less dark patch, a whisp of air in the night. She sees that he is “lost and confused,” unsure where he is or where he is going, so she stands in her yellow dress “to remind him of this world as he leaves it for another” (255).

As Garth drives, he sees Nathan by the side of the road. He pulls over and makes Nathan get in, realizing that he is soaking wet. Nathan refuses to accept the blanket Garth offers him or close the door. Garth tries to get Nathan to tell him what he was doing. Initially Nathan says he doesn’t want to talk, then tells him he was in the water to look at a star—from a view that no one ever saw it—but once he was in the water, he couldn’t see the star at all. He admits that he wanted to be in the cold and the dark to “to know what it was like. For Robbie” (258). Garth is unsure how to respond but keeps telling Nathan that he should not be thinking about that and that he did nothing wrong. He tries to leave, but Nathan tells him he needs another minute. He reaches over and grabs Garth’s hair, and the two sit together in silence.

Nathan thinks of the stories he was told as children, of the dark and the creatures that lived there. In the stories, the children always survived and defeated what they faced. However, he wonders why the stories failed to mention how much the children changed and were affected by what they went through to survive.

Chess sits with Odin on the couch. She decides that she has to continue the life she has laid out for her and Odin—whether she wants to or not. She knows that she will always have to make excuses to Odin about Garth, reminding Odin that Garth is doing his best even when he is unreliable or late.

On the front porch, Dan snorts drugs from a vial. He feels a “jolt of return,” like he is himself again, and knows that “he should feel guiltier about it than he does” (262). He thinks of everything he is going through—losing Robbie while no one notices his pain, caring for his children each day while his music career repeatedly fails, feeling like an “embarrassment” to his own son, and more. He takes two more “hits,” then tells himself that there is hope, as he and Isabel will get back together, and he will find success.

As Garth drives, he tells Nathan that he needs to talk to his parents. He offers to listen to Nathan if he wants to talk more about it to him.

Violet stays at the window until Robbie’s shadow leaves and whispers “goodbye.” She then looks at the mirror in her room and sees herself, staring back, in her yellow dress.

Isabel decides that she will stay in the house long enough to fix it up, then find something better. She also decides that she is going to find a new job and meet someone new and hopes that there is a chance at some happiness—despite everything she has been through. She pulls out Robbie’s phone and makes one final post to Wolfe’s Instagram. It is a selfie Robbie took in the cabin doorway, wearing Dan’s Ramones T-shirt, with the inside of the cabin behind him. She writes in the caption that it is his last post and that they are leaving Iceland but will always take a piece of it with them, as they return home then onto the next part of life.