During a Chicago blizzard, Zelu arrives at the funeral home with Msizi for her father's wake-keeping, panicking at the threshold. Msizi comforts her, reminding her that her father lives on through her. Inside, the lobby is packed with mourners from her father's many circles—engineering colleagues, church members, Igbo and Yoruba communities, Pan-Africanists. Bola pulls Zelu to a private back room where her siblings, mother, and Auntie Constance have gathered.

The family enters the viewing room first. Zelu finally looks at her father in his white casket, dressed in an Isiagu with his broken ikenga on his chest, but his face is locked in an angry scowl unlike his usual kind expression. Her mother and Chinyere argue with the funeral director, who says nothing more can be done. Chinyere covers the lower half of his face with her scarf. The siblings begin breaking down in a domino effect, and Chinyere orders Msizi to take Zelu out before she falls.

In a private room, Msizi grounds Zelu with breathing exercises and tells her to approach the day as a writer—to bear witness as both observer and observed. Strengthened, Zelu returns and helps greet hundreds of mourners. She worries about her mother, whom Auntie Constance pressures to host and smile despite her grief, but Chinyere shushes Zelu's protest. They have agreed to allow her father's burial in Nigeria, and Zelu fears Igbo traditions will be especially harsh on her Yoruba mother.

Suddenly drums sound from the lobby. An Igbo masquerade procession—drummer, flute player, bell-staff bearer, and a nine-foot raffia masquerade—enters to honor Chief Secret Wednesday Onyenezi. The masquerade prostrates before the casket and dances. The Nigerian women retreat to the side of the room as tradition dictates.

Then Zelu's mother lets out primal screams—"My Secret, oooo!"—kicks off her shoes, and rushes to dance wildly with the masquerade, breaking every tradition. A Yoruba princess dancing with an Igbo masquerade in America is unprecedented. Auntie Constance, the other women, and all the sisters, including a sobbing Uzo, join in. Tolu cheers her on. Zelu stands back and bears witness to her mother's catharsis.