It is getting closer to September and the time Dolores must leave her grandmother’s home and go live in the dorms at Merton. To her surprise, Grandma hands Dolores her mother’s bank book. Dolores is shocked to discover that her mother has been saving for her college education for years, depositing money into the account every two weeks until the day she died.

Dolores begins writing letters more frequently to her roommate-to-be, Kippy. In the letters, she invents a life for herself that does not exist in reality: professional jobs for her parents and an English boyfriend named “Derrick.” Kippy writes back, and as the two correspond, Kippy reveals more about her life and Dolores continues to create fanciful lies about her own.

Grandma has had the banister repaired, the one Dolores broke into pieces when she fainted. Grandma decides that, as long as they are doing renovations, she might as well update the wallpaper. She finds someone to do it, but his arrival will conflict with a trip she wanted to take with some of her friends. Dolores assures her that she will be all right at home alone and that she can handle the man who comes to put up the wallpaper.

Even though Dolores has reassured her and urged her to go, her grandmother is reluctant. Instead of giving Dolores an answer, Grandma piddles around the living room, dusting. Grandma pauses so frequently that Dolores asks if she is having dizzy spells. No, she says. She is pausing because she keeps getting lost in memories. Grandma spends time doing something she has seldom done when talking to Dolores: she tells stories about her mother and her uncle, Eddie. Dolores is not even sure she is talking to her exactly, just that Grandma is reminiscing aloud and that she does not want to miss a single word. Dolores stays as still and quiet as possible.

Grandma remembers how Eddie would follow her everywhere. She recalls how eager her mother was, as a child, to be given a task to do. She cannot believe that she has outlived both her son and her daughter. Grandma’s pain is palpable. It changes the way Dolores thinks of her grandmother.

Grandma finally decides she will go on the trip after all. Dolores watches as their neighbor, Mrs. Mumphrey, packs her into her car and drives away. Alone in the house, Dolores had planned to start investigating, to poke around and find out what she could about her mother’s life. Instead, she becomes seduced by the television and eats her way through the hours, alone, until she is interrupted by the arrival of the mail.

She is surprised to find a letter addressed to her. Inside is a note from the wife of the man who had been driving the truck that killed her mother, Mrs. Arthur Music. Mrs. Music expresses her, and her husband’s, deep regret over the accident. She has enclosed a picture of their family, saying they are strong Christians and that Arthur was not an alcoholic. A check for $500 is also included.

Dolores is unsettled by the sudden humanizing of her mother’s killer. “Even the mail could rape you,” she thinks.