Vivi’s mother, in a fit of desperation, wrote to a Catholic girls’ boarding school, pleading with them to take Vivi as a student immediately. She cited Vivi’s friends as bad influences who were corrupting Vivi’s life; she added that her husband was contributing to the problem as well.

Sidda finds a stack of letters addressed to Vivi at the boarding school, the first of which is from Necie, who expressed her grief at Vivi’s absence. Necie told Vivi that her brother and friends missed her dearly. There was also a letter from Vivi’s older brother Pete, another from Caro, and a longer letter from Teensy, who was frustrated about how difficult it was to get in touch with Vivi. Sidda is pained to think of her mother being ripped away from her family and friends at the age of 16. She wonders if her mother’s experiences, which shaped Vivi, then shaped Sidda herself as she was in her mother’s womb. She considers the possibility that she and her mother still remain connected in some incomprehensible way.

On the morning that Vivi left to boarding school, her mother, Buggy, woke her up early. Buggy had changed Vivi’s plans to leave in the afternoon without warning; she had forbidden Vivi from saying goodbye to anyone.