Chap­ter 47 opens with the dev­as­tat­ing news of John’s sud­den death in 1980, a loss that left every­one reel­ing. At just shy of fifty, John was the health­i­est and most ath­let­ic among them, a man who exer­cised reg­u­lar­ly and avoid­ed bad habits like smok­ing. His unex­pect­ed death from a heart attack seemed incom­pre­hen­si­ble, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing his lifestyle. Yet, life often doesn’t make sense, and his pass­ing left an indeli­ble void in the hearts of those who knew him, espe­cial­ly his fam­i­ly and close friends. John’s absence was felt deeply, and the grief his death caused per­me­at­ed every aspect of their lives.

For Con­nor, who was just five years old at the time, the death of her beloved Uncle John was dif­fi­cult to under­stand. Try­ing to explain where he had gone was an impos­si­ble task, but per­haps the hard­est part was explain­ing why her father, Har­ry, was so dev­as­tat­ed. Harry’s grief man­i­fest­ed in a pro­found way; for weeks, he strug­gled to get out of bed, bare­ly able to func­tion. When he did man­age to rise, it was only to reach for a bot­tle of bour­bon. His days were filled with sor­row and numb­ness, a fog of alco­hol that masked his deep pain, mak­ing him dis­tant and unkind. It was a harsh real­i­ty for the fam­i­ly to wit­ness, but despite Harry’s suf­fer­ing, the pro­tag­o­nist remained deter­mined to sup­port him in any way pos­si­ble.

While the pro­tag­o­nist strug­gled to com­fort Har­ry, the griev­ing process for Celia was also very pub­lic. Pho­tographs of her, tear-streaked and exhaust­ed, as she entered her trail­er on a film set in Ari­zona, reflect­ed the raw­ness of her own heart­break. The pro­tag­o­nist longed to con­sole Celia, to gath­er every­one togeth­er and sup­port each oth­er through the pain, but the cir­cum­stances made that impos­si­ble. Despite the dis­tance between them, the pro­tag­o­nist knew that her focus need­ed to remain on help­ing Har­ry recov­er, even if that meant sac­ri­fic­ing her own emo­tion­al needs in the process. She and Con­nor made dai­ly vis­its to Harry’s apart­ment, try­ing to bring some nor­mal­cy to his life. Con­nor stayed in her own room, while the pro­tag­o­nist slept on the couch in Harry’s bed­room, tend­ing to his needs as he strug­gled to take care of him­self.

One morn­ing, the pro­tag­o­nist woke up to find Har­ry and Con­nor in the kitchen, shar­ing a qui­et moment. Con­nor was hap­pi­ly pour­ing her­self cere­al, unaware of the emo­tion­al tur­moil her father was expe­ri­enc­ing. Har­ry, still in his paja­ma bot­toms, stood by the win­dow, his gaze lost in the dis­tance. He held an emp­ty glass in his hand, and when he turned back to face Con­nor, the pro­tag­o­nist greet­ed them with a sim­ple “Good morn­ing.” It was then that Con­nor, with the inno­cence only a child could pos­sess, asked her father, “Dad­dy, why do your eyes look wet?” This ques­tion hung in the air, leav­ing the pro­tag­o­nist unsure whether Har­ry had been cry­ing or if he had sim­ply start­ed drink­ing ear­ly that morn­ing, a mix­ture of emo­tions that was dif­fi­cult to deci­pher.

The funer­al brought the fam­i­ly togeth­er in a way that noth­ing else had. The pro­tag­o­nist wore a vin­tage black Hal­ston, a sym­bol of respect and mourn­ing. Har­ry, on the oth­er hand, donned an all-black ensem­ble, from his suit to his socks, his grief evi­dent in every part of his appear­ance. There was no escap­ing the weight of the loss, and grief seemed to cling to Har­ry as if it were part of his very being. His face, for­ev­er marked by the pain of John’s death, reflect­ed the deep sor­row that he strug­gled to car­ry with him. Despite the funer­al and the solemn occa­sion, it was clear that Harry’s mourn­ing was not just about John’s death—it was about his own inner tur­moil, his inabil­i­ty to cope, and the over­whelm­ing sense of loss that con­sumed him.

Through these moments of deep emo­tion­al strug­gle, the pro­tag­o­nist learned just how much one person’s grief could affect every­one around them. They could only move for­ward one day at a time, offer­ing sup­port when need­ed and allow­ing room for per­son­al heal­ing. Despite the over­whelm­ing grief and the harsh real­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion, the pro­tag­o­nist remained stead­fast in their role as the care­giv­er, pro­vid­ing the emo­tion­al anchor that Har­ry and Con­nor need­ed, even when it felt like the world was falling apart.