Chap­ter 3 begins with Phoebe grap­pling with the weight of her mor­tal­i­ty, haunt­ed by the regrets and dis­ap­point­ments of her life. Sur­round­ed by the rem­nants of a past filled with restric­tions and con­cerns, she embraces a moment of rebel­lion, pour­ing her­self a glass of Ger­man choco­late wine as she reflects on what she’s missed—particularly her long-held dream of see­ing the ocean. Despite acknowl­edg­ing this unful­filled wish, she is bur­dened by the recent sep­a­ra­tion from her hus­band, Matt, who chose to end their mar­riage over Zoom dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. His depar­ture has left her feel­ing aban­doned, hurt, and betrayed, ampli­fy­ing her sense of loss and iso­la­tion.

As she gazes out at the ocean from her hotel room, Phoebe attempts to indulge in a small com­fort by order­ing a lux­u­ri­ous final meal, hop­ing for lob­ster and oys­ters. How­ev­er, her plans are thwart­ed by the hotel staff, who inform her that room ser­vice has been sus­pend­ed due to an open­ing recep­tion. The idea of inter­act­ing with cheer­ful guests at the recep­tion caus­es her anx­i­ety, com­pelling her to aban­don the idea of the meal and retreat fur­ther into her­self. The ten­sion she feels in this moment reveals the depth of her despair, ampli­fy­ing her sense of dis­con­nec­tion from the world around her.

Reflect­ing on her life, Phoebe is remind­ed of the emo­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges she’s faced, par­tic­u­lar­ly the strug­gles tied to her career as an edu­ca­tor. A con­ver­sa­tion with one of her stu­dents, Adam, who con­tem­plates drop­ping out of col­lege to pur­sue a pas­sion for mak­ing pants, mir­rors Phoebe’s own con­fu­sion about her pur­pose. Her inner tur­moil about her career path and iden­ti­ty begins to sur­face, as she con­tem­plates her strug­gles with find­ing mean­ing in both her work and her per­son­al life. This inter­ac­tion high­lights her grow­ing feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy and uncer­tain­ty, sig­nal­ing a shift in her self-per­cep­tion and her abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of her own exis­tence.

The nar­ra­tive takes a more intense turn when Phoebe encoun­ters Mia, the woman Matt left her for. They meet in a pho­to­copi­er room, and a tense con­ver­sa­tion unfolds between them. As Phoebe con­fronts Mia, express­ing her feel­ings of betray­al and hurt, she uncov­ers painful truths about her mar­riage. Mia admits to lov­ing Matt, and Phoebe real­izes that their rela­tion­ship had already been on shaky ground long before Mia entered the pic­ture. This rev­e­la­tion marks a turn­ing point for Phoebe, as she comes to terms with the fact that her mar­riage had been bro­ken before the affair, deep­en­ing her sense of loss.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Phoebe becomes over­whelmed by grief, her world becom­ing increas­ing­ly suf­fo­cat­ing. After strug­gling to cope with her emo­tions, she is struck by the sud­den death of her beloved cat, Har­ry, com­pound­ing her sense of despair. Seek­ing solace in alco­hol, Phoebe tries to numb the pain, but the fol­low­ing morn­ing, the harsh real­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion crash­es down on her. She begins to reflect on the inevitabil­i­ty of death and the con­cept of rebirth, draw­ing from the philoso­phies of Whit­man. How­ev­er, despite these philo­soph­i­cal mus­ings, she can’t help but feel that the future holds lit­tle promise, inten­si­fy­ing her inner con­flict.

In a final act of defi­ance against the over­whelm­ing despair she’s feel­ing, Phoebe decides to take a step toward escape. She books a stay at the Corn­wall, sym­bol­iz­ing her attempt to find refuge from the anguish that has con­sumed her life. This ges­ture sug­gests that while Phoebe is still deep in her grief, she is try­ing to take con­trol of her des­tiny, seek­ing solace in a place that might offer her some form of reprieve. The chap­ter con­cludes on a note of ten­ta­tive hope, indi­cat­ing that Phoebe is begin­ning to search for a way out of her emo­tion­al tor­ment, even if it’s just a tem­po­rary escape.