In a flashback to the beginning of Chapter 6, Guitar returns to his home to find Hagar in a state of shock following her aborted attempt to kill Milkman. He carries her outside, then borrows a car to drive her home. During the drive, he tries to console her, but Hagar remains silent and unresponsive. Guitar finds himself mentally comparing Hagar to his own two sisters, who were watched over by the entire community and grew up feeling loved and protected. He concludes that Hagar's lack of such support has led to her crippling sense of low self-worth.
At home, Pilate and Reba do everything they can think of to support Hagar, who takes to her bed and remains severely depressed. Finally, in an attempt to cheer her up, Pilate gives her a compact mirror. When Hagar sees her disheveled reflection, she rouses herself from her stupor and announces that she needs to go shopping so that she will appear more beautiful — and desirable — to Milkman. Elated that she has finally emerged from her stupor, Reba pawns her diamond ring to finance Hagar's shopping spree. However, when Hagar returns home from shopping, rain-soaked, exhausted, and disoriented, and realizes that her efforts have been in vain, she succumbs to tears. Burning with fever, she becomes delirious and eventually dies — of a broken heart. Because Pilate and Reba have no more money left for her funeral, Ruth passively coerces Macon to pay for it. The chapter closes with Reba and Pilate's emotional tribute to Hagar at the girl's funeral.
