Chap­ter 4 delves into Phoe­be’s inter­nal tur­moil as she lies on a king-sized canopy bed, grap­pling with the weight of her impend­ing death. While the wed­ding recep­tion buzzes below her, she is con­sumed by unset­tling, triv­ial concerns—like the thought of a bride’s dress stained with blood, which shat­ters her vision of peace­ful clo­sure. Seek­ing an escape, Phoebe tries to use her old Dis­c­man, only to be frus­trat­ed by the scratched CD that pre­vents her from find­ing solace in music. Step­ping out onto the bal­cony for a brief respite, she lights a cig­a­rette, attempt­ing to calm her nerves, though the act only leads to painful cough­ing, empha­siz­ing her sense of unease and dis­com­fort.

With the day stretch­ing on with­out any oblig­a­tions, Phoebe reflects on her sit­u­a­tion, each puff of the cig­a­rette serv­ing as a small relief from her morose thoughts. Despite this, the loom­ing aware­ness of her mor­tal­i­ty fills her with the stark real­iza­tion that life will go on with­out her, and that peo­ple will eas­i­ly for­get her exis­tence once she’s gone. As she watch­es the wed­ding guests below, their joy and care­free inter­ac­tion seem both cap­ti­vat­ing and for­eign, and she feels detached, almost judg­ing their inter­ac­tions from her ele­vat­ed perch. This sense of sep­a­ra­tion ampli­fies her feel­ings of iso­la­tion and high­lights her inter­nal strug­gle as she con­tem­plates her own place in the world.

The soli­tude is soon inter­rupt­ed by a knock on the door, and the bride, a fig­ure of author­i­ty and expec­ta­tion, enters and con­fronts Phoebe about smok­ing in her room. Their inter­ac­tion reveals the under­ly­ing ten­sions between them, par­tic­u­lar­ly around beau­ty and priv­i­lege, as the bride vents about her less-than-ide­al room and the lav­ish wed­ding plans fund­ed by her deceased father’s wealth. Phoebe, lis­ten­ing to the bride’s com­plaints, begins to real­ize how the lack of a lov­ing mater­nal fig­ure in their lives has shaped both of their per­spec­tives on love, expec­ta­tions, and iden­ti­ty. The con­ver­sa­tion takes an unex­pect­ed turn, and Phoebe finds her­self empathiz­ing with the bride in ways she hadn’t antic­i­pat­ed, as they both share frus­tra­tions about the bur­dens of famil­ial expec­ta­tions.

As the con­ver­sa­tion deep­ens, Phoebe starts to sense a strange con­nec­tion with the bride, whose own anx­i­ety about mar­riage and her moth­er’s influ­ence mir­rors Phoe­be’s strug­gles with her past. They engage in a can­did dis­cus­sion about the val­ue of art and their indi­vid­ual choic­es in life, with the bride con­fess­ing her doubts about liv­ing up to her mother’s lega­cy and the pres­sures of ful­fill­ing her father’s dreams. Through these shared thoughts on love, loss, and the weight of famil­ial oblig­a­tions, a frag­ile bond begins to form between the two women, despite their dif­fer­ences. The con­ver­sa­tion becomes a moment of solace for Phoebe, as she finds her­self relat­ing to the bride in unex­pect­ed ways.

The mood shifts slight­ly when they share a laugh over dark anec­dotes about death and absur­di­ty, with Phoebe momen­tar­i­ly light­en­ing the atmos­phere. The bride, sens­ing Phoe­be’s hes­i­ta­tion, sug­gests that Phoebe recon­sid­er her plans, urg­ing her to choose life. Phoebe firm­ly rejects the idea, reit­er­at­ing that her deci­sion has already been made. How­ev­er, the chap­ter takes a ten­der turn when the bride begins to floss her teeth, a seem­ing­ly insignif­i­cant act that nonethe­less sym­bol­izes a calm before the storm of her wed­ding. This sim­ple, inti­mate moment offers Phoebe a glimpse of com­pan­ion­ship, stir­ring emo­tions she hasn’t felt in some time. It con­trasts the iso­la­tion she has been expe­ri­enc­ing since her hus­band’s depar­ture and deep­ens her inner con­flict about the inter­sec­tion of life and death. The chap­ter con­cludes with Phoebe con­tem­plat­ing her deci­sion, torn between the weight of her past and the faint pos­si­bil­i­ty of hope in an unex­pect­ed con­nec­tion.