After Charles gets drunk at a party, Dulcie takes the keys from his pocket and drives the both of them home. As they are driving through Hollywood back to Silver Lake on backroads, a van rear ends their car. The couple gets out of their car and try to tell the people that hit them that everything is fine, their car is a piece of junk anyways. But four teenagers get out of the van and put a gun to Charles's head. They get in Charles and Dulcie's car and drive away. The police tell Charles and Dulcie there is nothing they can do. Dulcie fears that the kids will come looking for them since their address is on the car's registration, but Charles tries to reassure her that they were just high kids who wanted a vehicle. Not long after, the police tell Dulcie and Charles that they've located their vehicle and they can go pick it up, that the kids probably dumped it when they ran out of gas. When they find the car, it is ripped apart and full of trash. Not worth the cost, Charles and Dulcie leave it at the junkyard. Back at home, the rat that has been living in their apartment wall in the bedroom becomes increasingly loud, and Dulcie becomes increasingly paranoid. She takes the mattress out of the bedroom and puts it in the living room, where she wants to sleep with the lights on. Charles obliges at first, but his relationship with his wife is faltering. It has been ever since her miscarriage a year ago. They never have sex, and Dulcie is constantly suffering. He remembers how she sat with frozen vegetables over her breasts in the weeks after the stillbirth, how they spread the tiny bag of ashes in the ocean. An exterminator comes and places traps for the rat. Dulcie goes back to work. One day, Charles takes the day off of work and reflects. He briefly considers leaving Dulcie. When he gets home, he puts their mattress back in their room. Dulcie, when she arrives at home, seems to accept this. Charles touches his wife intimately that night, and she does not push him away. She tries to grab a condom, but he assures her that everything is okay.