Mrs. Bea Davis, an old woman, is in the Detroit airport on her way home to Chicago after visiting one of her two daughters, Megan, a childless, 42-year-old lawyer, in upstate New York. Her other daughter, Susan, is now into aura therapy and tarot. On her visit to Megan, Megan accused Bea of never having anything but contempt for her late husband, Mac. Bea feels indignant about this accusation, because as a child, Megan was always the one who held what Bea perceived as contempt for her father, who was physically abusive, with suicidal thinking and anger issues, and often tried to persuade Bea to leave him. In the airport, Bea talks to herself, telling Mac she loves him, imagining Megan accusing her of not loving him. She remembers how Megan used to put on plays with the other neighborhood children, similarly to how she and her siblings played as kids. She thinks of Megan's beauty and remembers being fascinated by her own mother's beauty. A woman with a little boy passes Bea on the moving walkway. The little boy stares at Bea. Bea buys a hat and scarf from an airport saleswoman who compliments her. She remembers Susan being upset when her stepmom told her about her granddaddy killing some kittens. She tried to comfort Susan even though she remembered the incident and thought it was wrong since her mother had promised the kittens to her and her siblings before he killed them. She recalls her husband cheating on her when Megan was born. At her airport gate, Bea sees the mother and the little boy again. The mother often calls her son an idiot and hits the back of his head. Bea starts talking to them, because she thinks they look familiar, and the boy says he knows her from "the magic cave." Bea understands this to be the moving walkways earlier in the airport, in a tunnel with a view of the sea. She praises the boys imaginative spirit, which his mother doesn't understand. His mother asks her to watch him while she asks a question about their boarding passes. The boy tells Bea about his father in Iraq. Bea tells the boy his father would be so proud of him. When the woman comes back, though, she says this is a lie—she has nobody, no husband. She slaps the back of her son's head again and Bea wishes she wouldn't, but feels she understands why she does it. On the plane, Bea recalls her ex-husband's death, how their daughters tried to take care of him in their different ways. Susan meditated with him and says she saw, in his heart, a small boy in a garden surrounded by a dense thicket of thorns. She thinks of how the boy made up a hero of a father and how Megan, hating her father as a child had, after his death, been outraged that Bea didn't respect his former war service. She remembers, after her ex-husband's death, finding love letters he'd written her and never sent her after leaving her, asking her to take him back. She thinks of her children: "Why are they so far away? Why don't they have children? Why does Megan stare at me so coldly when I tell her she's beautiful?" She feels as if she can feel the little boy reaching out telepathically, asking to be loved and seen, and she tries to answer telepathically, telling him how wonderful he is. She tells him: "Don't get lost in the thorn garden. We need you right here." Much later, she will tell Megan and Susan about this incident. She's worried Susan will talk about the astral plane, but instead she will say: "I've heard people who had abusive childhoods say they survived because they had a good experience with an adult outside the family. Even one, even if it was tiny." On the airplane, Bea has a dream that begins with Megan kissing her goodnight.