Before their marriage, our protagonist’s wife worked as a personal assistant to Robert, an older blind man, while living in Seattle with her soon-to-be first husband. She took the job purely out of financial need. Still, she developed a close friendship with Robert and maintained regular correspondence. In their back-and-forth tapes, she recounts her unhappiness moving between army bases, her suicide attempt, her divorce from her first husband, and her engagement to her second one. She’s told her husband about her relationship with Robert, including a tender moment at the end of that Seattle summer when he asked if he could touch her face. She’s shown her husband the poem she wrote to consecrate the interaction. Now Robert is coming to spend the night after visiting the in-laws of his recently deceased wife.

Transparency notwithstanding, the husband expresses unmoving displeasure concerning the imminent visit. He is openly disdainful of the man’s blindness and maintains that Robert is a stranger to him. The husband is sparingly courteous when he arrives, pouring everybody drinks before they dig into a sumptuous dinner. Robert and the wife launch into enthusiastic conversation after the meal, in which the husband participates minimally, answering questions when asked. Drinks are poured amply throughout.
In his house in New Orleans, 7-year-old Teddy is asleep in his bedroom with his stuffed animals guarding him from his older brothers and from monsters. His stepfather, Eric, enters his room and wakes him to tell him they must find Teddy’s mother, Rhoda, who did not come home the previous night. They drive to a duplex several blocks down and find Rhoda halfway up the stairs wearing only pantyhose. Eric calls the doctor, and Teddy wonders why his mother has no clothes on, though Eric tells him that she fell down the stairs. 

With concern, Eric sends Teddy away to stay with his grandparents for a while. Teddy whines because his grandparents constantly yell at him, and he likes to spend time with Eric. On the way out, Eric allows Teddy to see his mother before he leaves, and his mother tells him that Eric had tried to kill her and to tell his grandfather and uncle this information. Teddy denies this, saying that Eric was with him and thinks his mother is drunk. Eric tells Teddy to get going as the gardener will pick him up soon to drive him to his grandparents’ house.  

Eric goes to Rhoda’s workroom, where she paints. He opens her diary and reads that Rhoda has engaged in some adultery. She is very unhappy with her life as a wife and a mother of a son who likes Eric more than her. Eric reads with despair and recognizes that he must keep the marriage together for his love for Teddy. 

When Teddy and George arrive at Mandeville, his grandparents have food and activities ready for him. Despite his denial, Teddy tells his grandfather and uncle Ingersol what his mother told her about Eric. Ingersol rushes to Rhoda. 

Meanwhile, Rhoda cries because her poems were rejected by a journal and tells Eric that she was not cheating on him but merely meeting a poet. Eric dismisses her cries and warns her that he was forced to take Teddy with him to witness her lying down in case she would accuse him of pushing her down the stairs “again.” Eric leaves her disappointed and goes to pick up Teddy, who is overjoyed to see his car pull up in the driveway and hopes that Eric and Rhoda will not divorce.