Joseph, who goes by Abu (father of) Victor, is an aging Lebanese expatriate who settled in Montreal with his wife Nadia in the 1980s. They are in the process of moving out of their dilapidated rent-controlled apartment and, while Nadia is away, Abu Victor confronts a dilemma: the frozen wedding cake of his dead son will not survive the move. Joseph’s son Victor died shortly before his wedding when he was struck with a bullet shot by a police officer on accident—the bullet was meant for a man wielding a knife who happened to be in Victor’s vicinity. His fiancee, Mi-yung, was like a daughter to Joseph and Nadia, and her marriage years later to a new partner was particularly painful for Joseph.  Abu Victor calls his best friend George, who proposes that they, along with two of their friends, who are also expatriates from Beirut who have relocated to Montreal, get together and eat the cake. The four men settle on Abu Victor’s back patio. George was blinded by an explosion in Beirut when he was ten and uses a cane to get around. Elias, who goes by Le Colonel, originally left Lebanon to pursue a woman and study philosophy in Paris. There, he fell in love with a Lebanese man with whom he now lives in a wealthy neighborhood in Montreal. Tony, the leader of the group, has never fallen out of love with Nadia, despite her marriage to his old friend. The group, having assembled on Abu Victor’s patio, deliberate over what they should do with the cake, which is the elaborate triple-tiered creation of a local Japanese bakery. They decide that eating it is the only feasible course of action, although Abu Victor’s evident grief over the necessity of doing so unnerves the rest of the group. They begin to eat, drink, tell jokes, and recollect their shared childhood in the Beirut of the 1970s. The occasion is especially bittersweet for Joseph, Abu Victor, who questions his place in Montreal and mistrusts the notion that Lebanon will ever have a sustained peace that can be returned to. He tells the group the story of a time that his son Victor stood up for himself after experiencing a racist remark. Eventually, Abu Victor hears the front door opening, and worries that it is Nadia, who will resent his decision to eat the cake.