John wakes up thinking about Ann, his friend Graham’s wife. Lying next to him is his own spouse, Kristina, who always sleeps naked. He touches her body casually before getting up to make coffee for her, habitually moving through his morning routine without even thinking about it. Instead, John’s mind continues to be occupied by Ann: he wonders if she is awake, and contemplates whether she might be thinking about him.

John thinks back to when he first saw Ann: several years ago, at a nursery school parking lot. Expertly making up a story about a huge cookie, John had persuaded Ann’s distracted daughter to get out of the car. He thinks that even then, before their interactions became more frequent, he liked her.

It is a Saturday, so John cleans the kitchen as he always does, thinking about Ann while Kristina is off working at her gourmet shop. He used to have simpler fantasies when it came to Ann—small confessions, holding her hand—but now, his daydreams are more vivid and usually involve secretive, steamy sex. Next, John thinks of the meditation he has been reading about lately; he remembers how the books instructed him to picture his mind as a pond, and he regains his composure. A fond memory of meeting Ann at the bookstore rises to the surface of his mind-pond, and he allows himself to calmly remember and cherish it.

That evening, John and Kristina host a Christmas party, inviting Ann and Graham among a handful of other friends. Ann helps John put his whiny son to sleep and he impulsively tells her that he misses her when she is not here. She tells him that she feels the same way.