“A wasted emotion if someone else dumps it on you—guilt.”

That’s what she’d heard: guilt. Who said that? Addie had black spots before her eyes.

“Guilt,” she echoed. But this was the only word she spoke. The others were looking at her with kindness. Where had they been taking this? Wake up, she told herself. Wake up and allow guilt to fill the space.

THE SWEDE, Hazzley was thinking. And quickly brushed Meiner away. She had no regrets. At the time, she had wanted nothing more than to break free and live a normal life. Was normal achievable, or was it a myth, a state no one experienced? She had come to believe that there were many different and undefined ways of being normal. Whatever it was, she sometimes felt herself outside the conversation.

For instance, while Lew was alive those last couple of years, she was prevented from living the way others did. The way she thought they did. Lew’s drinking had prevented that. Don’t blame everything on Lew, she reminded herself, but don’t start feeling guilty, either. Schuld, she said to herself. German for “guilt.” But Schuld also means “debt.” Surely, surely I am not carrying a debt load at this stage of my life.

IDA DIED AND I’M ALIVE, Tom thought. Why did life turn out that way? Why should I be the one to live? What better reason for guilt? He thought of her receiving oxygen, telling him she was thankful for the life she’d lived. He lowered his head, stared at his hands clasped together on the table.

CHIYO ONCE AGAIN SAW the brown death knot at the side of her mother’s head. “Help me,” her mother cried out. Her mouth shaped the silent words: Help me. But Chiyo could not help. She had been unable to keep her mother from dying. She had not been capable of staunching her mother’s fear. And now she was trying not to feel guilty about moving on, about taking up the reins of her own life. She and her mother had both been born into the concept of on, the concept of giri. The limitless obligations that bound. Why did she think now of Amour, the one film that had caused her to become undone? The lowest point in the film was the scene that would not be forgotten: the old man, the old woman, the pillow over the face because love had been pushed beyond its breaking point. The director had been wise enough to call the film Amour. No, Chiyo told herself. I have many strengths. And I am already carving out a new path.

WE HAVE SUCH IMPERFECT LIVES, Gwen was thinking. I hated the bell. He made me hate everything about him at the end. What kind of horrible human am I to feel that way, to hide on the toilet seat and read while he was upstairs clanging the bell, giving orders that had to be followed? Well, folks, if you want to hear the ultimate guilty thought, there were times when I wanted him dead. But surely he’d have possessed his own version of dignity. A dignity that was lost to him because of the damage done by the stroke. I couldn’t see that at the time because all the other feelings got in the way.