Three months after the death of his wife, a man wakes up alone and aches with arthritis. The man reflects on his loss, trying to convince himself that his wife’s death was not truly a loss because she had been sick for some time. He thinks to himself that no one had even expected him to love her, but he did everything he could have done and spent much of his money to assure her comfort.  The man prepares for the day and heads to work, where he finds that he has nothing to do. He decides to call his lover, Cecilia, to quell his loneliness and ask her if she would like to have dinner with him that night. Cecilia, however, tells him that she has promised to entertain her brother’s children, as it is Halloween. She asks him to forgive her, which makes the man wince.  After dinner at his own home, where he lives with his adult son and his wife, the man decides to light every lamp in the parlor, but even after doing so, he is not satisfied. His daughter-in-law asks if he is cold, and the man internally wishes for everyone to leave him alone. He begins to imagine his late wife climbing up the stairs to join him, saying that she has always liked a warm house.  Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and trick-or-treating children exclaim to the man that they want apples and nuts. When he asks his son where the apples are, his son tells him that no one in the house eats apples, and the children comment that every Halloween prior, a woman who lived in this house would give them apples. As the children leave, the man questions how there could possibly be no apples in their home and announces that he will go to the store to buy some, which he later arranges on his wife’s grave.