January sits through a blind date with a man whom she finds completely unengaging. She deliberately keeps her phone face down on the table, aware that checking it will end a period of ignorance in which her friend remains alive. Despite her phone vibrating, she resists looking at it, trying to stay present for 17 minutes.

Something the man says breaks January’s resolve and she reaches for her phone. She later regrets that the date was not compelling enough to keep her from checking and confronting reality. When she turns the phone over and reads the news of her friend’s death, she feels that an unnamed part of herself also dies in that moment—something she will one day try to summon and find missing.

January struggles to accept the permanent physical absence of Nakia’s body. She recalls Juanita explaining over the phone, and later in person, that Nakia’s body had suffered significant damage. January picked up Juanita and Conrad from the hospital and drove them to a hotel because they could not bear staying at Nakia’s home or upsetting her brother CJ’s children. She observes how dramatically they have aged and feels awkward, oscillating between solemnity and inappropriate jokes. Nakia was 41; January considers her death a theft.

On television, a news chyron repeatedly announces “Local Restaurateur Found Dead” (250). January thinks Nakia would have rejected this label, preferring a title that might have suggested she made life easier for others. January questions the language—wondering how killers can “find” a body they themselves concealed. She dreads the moment when the news will stop mentioning Nakia. January reflects on Nakia’s relationships with others, and the ways she held herself at a distance or showed love.

The narrative then catalogs the decay of produce left in Nakia’s kitchen. Twenty bushels of unwashed collard greens from her garden turn from ochre to mustard to mottled brown, flattening like discarded skins. Rinsed dill in the sink becomes brittle, its scent fading. Fresh bay leaves dry successfully and are stored in muslin so Nakia’s partner can smell them to remember her. White onions sprout green stalks. Six tomatoes in a wooden bowl develop mold, burst, attract insects, and grow white cottony fungus, permanently staining the bowl. A lone eggplant resists decay longest, developing only slight creases before heat causes it to dimple and bleach from purple to yellow. Potatoes grow spiky green sprouts before collapsing inward. All varieties of peppers shift through vivid colors before wrinkling and shrinking.

Monique recalls her frequent arguments with Nakia about making her life public online and accumulating followers. She admits she dismissed Nakia’s concerns as jealousy to protect her own ego, convincing herself she was being magnanimous in forgiving Nakia’s supposed envy. She now recognizes that Nakia’s warnings were sincere, born from her own experience with public scrutiny as a young, queer, Black chef. Nakia understood how external judgment can distance a person from their work. Monique regrets never offering Nakia the same caution.

Monique asserts that a systemic machine killed Nakia, regardless of the specific cause of death; she muses on how the justice system is designed to make violence against people like Nakia appear logical. She predicts a civil suit against law enforcement will succeed, but monetary compensation is meaningless because it cannot resurrect the dead. Monique is disturbed that Nakia’s actual life has been obscured in death; she is now “a public symbol” instead of someone’s daughter (253), sister, boss, and lover. She is just one in a long list of names used for political discourse. Monique recognizes that she has expressed these sentiments about others who have died, but this itself feels hollow. She concludes that Nakia’s death has taught her nothing she did not already know: American society is lethal despite how she and Nakia believed they could survive it.

During the first year after Nakia’s death, Desiree dreams of her repeatedly. She welcomes these appearances, though she still hopes for an actual haunting. In the dreams, Nakia discusses ordinary plans rather than offering comfort. Each morning she records what she remembers in her phone, but the notes later seem meaningless. She confides in her partner, Jelani, that she has never felt so alone, but stops when she realizes he is “taking it personal[ly]” (255). Instead, she tells her friends. While January responds with stoicism, Monique angrily accuses her of surrendering to despair.

While Desiree is riding the bus one day, a woman named Sonia grabs her wrist and says a friend is trying to contact her. Feeling warm and calm, Desiree cancels dinner plans with Jelani and follows Sonia to her studio behind a botanica on Amsterdam Avenue. Surrounded by herbs, candles, and religious imagery, Sonia tells Desiree that Nakia’s soul is at peace. Desiree is disappointed and angry, believing this generic message is not what the real Nakia would communicate. She regrets deleting voicemails of Nakia singing her happy birthday. She imagines what Nakia would actually say about her life, including remarks about her sister, who has recently reached out; Desiree decides to try reconnecting with Danielle for Nakia’s sake.

Desiree also decides that Nakia would be furious at her for missing her funeral. She had convinced herself that staying in New York would keep the death unreal. Eventually, she traveled to see Nakia’s family, arriving a week or so after the already-postponed funeral. She hugged Nakia’s parents and cleaned out Nakia’s kitchen, though she avoided the bedroom and garden. She accepted a portion of Nakia’s ashes, which Jelani had made into a pyramid-shaped necklace charm that now hangs on her bedroom wall.

Desiree leaves Sonia’s botanica carrying matches and a candle and feeling disgusted with her foolish hope. She realizes she does not want luck; she wants resurrection.

Monique announces her decision to leave New York and the United States by the end of the month. She meticulously recounts the day that solidified this choice. It began with illegal construction at 7 am, prompting a futile call to 311. Attempting to go to the New York Public Library, she discovered a grave-sized hole dug in the sidewalk that trapped her on her stoop. She vomited into a planter and cried on the steps. Two workers, Yusef and Jon, laid planks over the hole and helped her across by holding her hands.

At Bryant Park, Monique’s phone alerted her to a forgotten video call orientation for her workshop, “Heartwork: How to Live a More Socially Conscious Life.” She began it with her headset on. Nearby, a Black woman named Octavia slept on cardboard near a bootleg ice cream truck. The vendor doused Octavia with water and verbally abused her. Still connected to the live video call, Monique intervened, positioning herself between Octavia and the truck. When the vendor threatened to call the police, she challenged his hypocrisy. He revealed he was Puerto Rican, and she said that made his behavior worse. Tensions escalated, with Monique tearing down the man’s cash-only signs and him calling her derogatory names.

When Octavia gathered her belongings to leave, Monique accompanied her, asking what she needed. Octavia requested money, prompting Monique to realize she had left her things at the table. When she returned, she found her wallet intact and noticed police speaking to the vendor, but her computer had been stolen. Meanwhile, Octavia disappeared. Monique would later learn that multiple people had filmed the incident, and one workshop participant recorded and shared her live audio. The incident went viral, earning Monique criticism from the mayor and a tabloid headline. Most videos largely excluded Octavia, erasing the context. Ever since this event, Monique has wanted to leave this country where people are violently marginalized and onlookers’ record such instances of violence instead of helping. Monique wants to have a child but refuses to raise one in such a culture. She ends her post refusing to disclose her destination.

Since Nakia’s death, January has avoided the intersection of La Brea and Centinela, because her sons always point out Nakia’s restaurant when they pass by. Though innocent, this ritual pains her. The children initially did not grasp Nakia’s permanent absence; and even after they understood, they continued announcing that they were passing Auntie Nakia’s restaurant.

While listening to Monique’s podcast one Tuesday morning, January forgets to take an alternate route and ends up outside Safe House. She sees a long line outside and notices Miguel has finally changed the restaurant’s name to “Nakia.” The restaurant now has a neon purple sign, which January believes Nakia would have liked. She notes the second restaurant location never reopened.

January’s family visits Los Angeles less frequently now; CJ sold his practice and moved his family to New Jersey. Months earlier, Nakia’s parents and brother, Jay, called January and offered her Nakia’s house on a rent-to-own basis, charging only the property tax. January accepted and shared the news with Desiree in a tearful video call. Her ex-partner, Morris, sometimes takes Bronze and Brook to the restaurant for Sunday brunch, leaving leftovers January pretends are for her roommate. January still manages the restaurant’s design work and website. Jay sent her a photo of a large commissioned portrait of Nakia, which now hangs in the restaurant, showing Nakia in front of her Jeep in a chef’s coat and Chuck Taylors, with vegetable crates at her feet and a vivid Los Angeles sunset behind her.

Desiree and her sister, Danielle, sit on a bench in Meridian Hill Park in Washington, DC, a place locals have long called Malcolm X Park. They sit at uncomfortable angles. From a distance, they do not resemble each other, but up close, they share identical hands—“long fingers” and “delicate joints” (265)—similar aging around their eyes, and graying hair.

Nearby, Danielle’s teenage twin daughters observe their mother and aunt with curiosity. To the twins, this meeting feels miraculous; although their aunt Desiree is almost 50 years old, she is brand new to them. The twins wait patiently for their moment to be introduced.