Three vandals come to Eilish’s house. They break windows in the house and on Eilish’s car. Eilish hides her children in the bathroom. The vandals spray paint “traitor” on her car. Eilish calls the gardaí, but no one comes to help.

Molly expresses a wish to die and starts sleeping in bed with Eilish. Bailey keeps wetting the bed. Mark’s girlfriend Samantha has Easter dinner with the Stack family.

Eilish is fired from her job. She sells the car and some family heirlooms. The local butcher refuses to sell to her, ignoring her as she waits at the counter while he helps other customers.

Eilish meets with Anne Devlin, the solicitor who is trying to find out what happened to Larry, but Anne still has no news. More people are arrested without charge and incarcerated without trial.

There are rumors that the rebel army has won significantly in the south of the country. Eilish meets with Carole, who has lost herself in her grief over her husband. Carole is convinced their husbands aren’t coming back and that the state can’t release them because playing with people’s hope is a way of silencing and controlling them. Eilish encourages Carole to remain hopeful and points out that rumors “do more harm than good, nobody knows anything, there is a total absence of facts, you’ve ceased to believe […] there cannot be despair where there is doubt and where there is doubt there is hope” (166).