The chapter flashes back to June 6, 2004, when sixteen-year-old Roman rides his little brother Dante on his bike to the family crematory on what was then Seventh Street. Dante has come to Roman crying after witnessing their mother having sex with a man named Oscar through a window. Roman, sensing his father is too absent to handle it, decides he must confront their mother himself, though he dreads it.

Inside the crematory's oven room, they find Bonita Carruthers in her scrubs, smiling and joking. When she senses something is wrong, Dante bluntly reveals what he saw. Bonita's denial—telling Dante he didn't know what he saw—shatters Roman's idolized image of her. He calls her out angrily, accusing her of betraying their father, and she slaps him hard across the face.

Roman instinctively grabs his mother's arms. A primal struggle follows, with both screaming at each other, until Dante inserts himself between them. As Bonita pulls away with one last effort and Dante pushes Roman back, Roman releases her. She falls and strikes her head on the corner of the worktable used for grinding cremains. Blood pools around her head, and she dies on the floor as her sons desperately try to wake her.

They remain with her body until nightfall, when Keith Carruthers returns. He weeps silently, then sends the boys into the lobby while he cremates his wife's body. Afterward, Keith tells his sons they can never tell anyone—not even Neveah—what happened, or they will be taken away or jailed. He insists the family must bear this secret alone. Roman whispers that it was an accident, and Keith embraces both boys, sealing the trauma that will haunt them forever.