Chap­ter 40 begins in a house full of pan­ic, as fear clings to every creak­ing sound and ring of the door­bell. Maryellen’s whisper—“They’ll go away”—isn’t just wish­ful think­ing; it’s a plea that echoes the ten­sion crawl­ing through the room. Plas­tic-wrapped pack­ages, heavy with impli­ca­tion, begin to stir, one even thud­ding to the floor and drag­ging itself toward the door. They real­ize, too late, that the lights were left on—an error that could expose them all. Each character—Maryellen, Mrs. Greene, and Kitty—wears blood not as a sym­bol but as a bur­den they can’t wash off fast enough. The ring­ing grows loud­er, the dread more phys­i­cal, and the sense of expo­sure sharp­er as they fum­ble to decide who appears the least sus­pi­cious.

Grace’s arrival brings relief but also judge­ment. Her sharp gaze moves from the women to the white car­pet stained red and up the walls marked with smeared prints. The grim truth can­not be hid­den, not even behind quick expla­na­tions. Grace demands hon­esty, refus­ing to shield her­self from the real­i­ty upstairs. After see­ing the scene for her­self, her tone shifts. She becomes the plan­ner, cold and pre­cise, ready to clean up the dis­as­ter with chill­ing effi­cien­cy. A plan is formed using the crematorium’s sched­ule, colum­bar­i­um nich­es, and knowl­edge acquired from years of han­dling what oth­ers left behind. Grace’s calm is unset­tling but nec­es­sary.

Time becomes an ene­my as the game nears its end, the streets prepar­ing to flood with noise and curi­ous neigh­bors. While Kit­ty and Maryellen pre­pare the vehi­cle, Grace com­mands a grim bal­let of logistics—finding box­es, direct­ing show­ers, and orga­niz­ing changes of clothes. The grotesque irony of their mis­sion, sand­wiched between a col­lege foot­ball game and a neigh­bor­hood in cel­e­bra­tion, height­ens the sur­re­al hor­ror. The body is split and packed, and despite attempts to make James Har­ris van­ish, blood betrays them. The house is a war zone of stains, smears, and frag­ments of violence—far from the untouched dis­ap­pear­ance they intend­ed. The fan­ta­sy of a clean era­sure is undone by the vis­cer­al real­i­ty of human mess.

When Maryellen and Kit­ty leave with the remains, Grace and Mrs. Greene stay behind. Not out of loy­al­ty, but out of neces­si­ty. They’ve spent their lives cleaning—after chil­dren, hus­bands, and now after death. Their tools are sim­ple: vine­gar, ammo­nia, per­ox­ide, bak­ing soda, and grit. Their rhythm is mechan­i­cal, method­i­cal, root­ed in years of labor invis­i­ble to those they served. Between them, they don’t just scrub a house; they erase a sto­ry, lay­er by lay­er, blood­stain by blood­stain. It is not glam­orous. It is sur­vival masked as house­keep­ing, a dance old­er than jus­tice itself.

By mid­night, Maryellen calls from a gas sta­tion. The job is done. C‑24 and C‑25 now hold James Harris’s secrets, sealed and record­ed. Grace and Mrs. Greene are near­ly fin­ished too, the sheets pressed, the floors sham­pooed, the lies set neat­ly into place. The house looks emp­ty of mem­o­ry, as though no one had lived there, let alone died there. Patri­cia, sleep­ing deeply, is shield­ed from the storm of actions that swirled around her. Her silence becomes a frag­ile peace—one she didn’t ask for but des­per­ate­ly need­ed. Mrs. Greene declines a ride, know­ing appear­ances mat­ter as much as actions.

The chap­ter winds down with qui­et con­fronta­tions and long-buried guilt. Grace is forced to hear what she avoid­ed for years—she had been wrong. She had been a cow­ard. She lis­tens, and for once, does not defend her­self. Instead, she sim­ply says, “I’m sor­ry.” It’s a small word, but in that moment, it holds the weight of every death, every betray­al, every moment missed to make things right. It is not for­give­ness, but it is a start. Mrs. Greene, sat­is­fied for now, pre­pares to bring her chil­dren home. That ges­ture feels more pow­er­ful than any con­fes­sion.

Grace returns to Patri­cia, who wakes up gasp­ing, her body still haunt­ed by the trau­ma. Grace soothes her with­out words, climb­ing into bed and hold­ing her. It’s a ges­ture root­ed in shared pain, a promise that what­ev­er comes next, they will not face it alone. As the night deep­ens, the chaos recedes into qui­et resolve. What remains is not guilt but sol­i­dar­i­ty, a bond sealed not by blood but by its era­sure.