Chap­ter V begins on a brisk morn­ing in March 2014, where Hen­ry Strauss finds him­self wrestling with time as he faces the start of a busy day in New York City. Though he envi­sions greet­ing each day with peace and a calm morn­ing cof­fee, Hen­ry often finds him­self strug­gling to match the pace of the world around him. Today is no dif­fer­ent as he rush­es to meet his younger sis­ter, Muriel, for breakfast—a meet­ing that has been delayed once again due to Henry’s habit of pro­cras­ti­na­tion. His sense of time slip­ping away adds to the ten­sion of the morn­ing, as he feels con­stant­ly behind in a world that demands more than he can keep up with.

Nav­i­gat­ing the city streets, Hen­ry is enveloped by the hus­tle of New York, with peo­ple mov­ing swift­ly around him as he heads toward a hid­den café known as Sun­flower. Sit­u­at­ed in a qui­et cor­ner of the city, Sun­flower is a peace­ful retreat away from the usu­al chaos, a space where Hen­ry can catch his breath. The café’s charm lies in its sim­plic­i­ty, offer­ing Hen­ry a brief escape from the fren­zy out­side, but he can­not shake the feel­ing that, despite the calm, his life is always tee­ter­ing between rare moments of peace and a con­stant reminder of his dis­con­nec­tion from those around him. Sun­flower is not just a café but a sym­bol of the space Hen­ry needs in a world that keeps mov­ing for­ward while he stays behind, caught between his own desire for peace and the demands of the peo­ple in his life.

Once inside the café, Hen­ry steels him­self for his meet­ing with Muriel, who, at just twen­ty-four years old, has already carved out a name for her­self in New York’s art world. Muriel’s vibran­cy and pas­sion for art stand in stark con­trast to Henry’s qui­et intro­spec­tion, mak­ing it chal­leng­ing for him to tru­ly con­nect with her world. As she speaks ani­mat­ed­ly about her lat­est cri­tiques of con­tem­po­rary art and her favorite exhibits, Hen­ry lis­tens with a sense of admi­ra­tion, but also dis­tance. Their con­ver­sa­tion flows eas­i­ly, but Hen­ry can­not help but feel that they are worlds apart, with Muriel’s life filled with pas­sion and cre­ativ­i­ty, while his own remains more ground­ed, focused on sta­bil­i­ty rather than artis­tic expres­sion. Despite their dif­fer­ences, there is an under­ly­ing affec­tion between them, as they share this rare moment of con­nec­tion, a reminder that fam­i­ly ties run deep­er than their con­trast­ing worlds.

Their con­ver­sa­tion takes an unex­pect­ed turn when Muriel brings up their old­er broth­er, David—a top­ic that Hen­ry hasn’t thought about in some time. Hen­ry is tak­en aback by Muriel’s men­tion of David’s sud­den inter­est in his life, as it is some­thing he had not antic­i­pat­ed. The rev­e­la­tion stirs up a mix of curios­i­ty and hes­i­ta­tion in Hen­ry, forc­ing him to con­front the com­plex­i­ties of his rela­tion­ship with David. As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Hen­ry is left with lin­ger­ing ques­tions about his fam­i­ly, the roles they expect him to play, and the unspo­ken emo­tions that shape their dynam­ics. Despite the seem­ing­ly casu­al nature of their break­fast, it becomes a space for reflec­tion on the com­plex­i­ties of fam­i­ly ties, indi­vid­ual iden­ti­ty, and the dif­fi­cul­ty of tru­ly under­stand­ing one anoth­er.

The chap­ter high­lights the grow­ing ten­sion between Henry’s need for inde­pen­dence and his famil­ial oblig­a­tions. Muriel’s life as an art crit­ic and her focus on the broad­er world of cre­ativ­i­ty is at odds with Henry’s more ground­ed per­spec­tive, caus­ing him to feel iso­lat­ed in their inter­ac­tions. As they con­tin­ue their break­fast, the divide between their lives becomes more appar­ent, leav­ing Hen­ry ques­tion­ing the nature of their con­nec­tion and his place with­in both his fam­i­ly and the city around him. The con­ver­sa­tion, while seem­ing­ly ordi­nary, is filled with unre­solved emo­tions and the qui­et real­iza­tion that Henry’s jour­ney is one of self-dis­cov­ery and the search for mean­ing with­in his rela­tion­ships and the world that con­tin­ues to move for­ward with­out him.