How It All Goes Down
- In May, there's a whole lot of mess on the news about people going to Dignitas to engage in assisted suicide. What a literary coincidence.
- One case in particular catches Lou's eye. A twenty-four-year-old kid named Leo got paralyzed while playing football, and after several failed suicide attempts, his parents finally agreed to take him to Dignitas.
- In all of these cases, there was a bunch of public outcry along with the threat of legal action from the authorities.
- To top off this news, Lou's dad is fired from his job. He heads straight to the Job Center, as Lou did, but "prospects for a fifty-five-year-old man" aren't looking good (14.11).
- That week, Will receives an invitation to Rupert and Alicia's wedding. For real?
- Treena and Thomas come home for a visit a few weekends later. Mom is beyond excited to have them back, but they don't seem to be adjusting well to living in the small room.
- A few days later, Lou asks Will where he would go if he could go anywhere. He says Paris and waxes poetic about coffee and croissants.
- Will wouldn't want to go now, though—that would just sully his memories.
- The next weekend, Lou finds her parents sleeping on the couch in the middle of the night. It turns out they gave Thomas and Treena their room so they could get a decent night of sleep.
- We return to the conversation about Leo, the young man who went to Dignitas. According to his parents, "he finally looked like Leo again" after going through with the procedure (14.157).