From her pocket, she pulls the two amber bottles of pills. She thinks of Betty and her pain, Betty who wanted to die beautifully, and didn't. She takes a bottle of Evian out of her basket, the first bottle water she's bought since the divorce. She felt giddy buying the water, because for once she could afford to be reckless with money.

The pills take a long time to go down. She knows that; she's done enough research to know that some suicides are unsuccessful because halfway through, the very process gets...boring. Kate knows she has to swallow them fast enough so she'll still be lucid enough to slip into the river, so she's set her watch to go off in 10 minutes if, God forbid, she isn't done. Or, God forbid, she's fallen asleep.

When she was in the library doing the research, Kate realized that she had learned enough to teach a class. She imagined herself going on that Oprah show, or giving Martha Stewart tips on an aesthetically pleasing end. She wished she had somone to share the joke with, but Betty was gone, and Blink would try to stop her.

There's a homeless man fishing by the river. As Kate approaches, she sees that there's no line in his rod. But the man is carefully, even skillfully, going through the motions. He had a life once where fishing was possible, and he hasn't wanted to give that up. He waves to Kate. She waves back. She thinks of her father, how he'd get home from a shift at the mill. How he'd scoop her up and take her to the river, and let her fish to her heart's content with a stick and a string and a bent pin. She liked the fish she caught in her imagination. Her father even helped her get a book out of the library so she could name the imaginary fish: pike, mackerel, trout. Kate could see, with more than 50 years' worth of hindsight, how much her father had needed to believe in those fish, too: that eventually, the river was going to give him something back. Well, he'd been wrong. And so was Kate.

For once, Kate likes being invisible. As soon as the sun sets, she gathers her tools: her shopping basket filled with rocks, her pills, her flashlight, and heads out the door. At least two frat parties are in progress, and one young man nearly mows her down as he jogs to the house carrying a case of beer. He doesn't apologize. Why should he? He doesn't see her.