Before she returns to her patient husband and growing sons, a painter takes her lover's hands in her own. She declares that because of his long palm lines, he will live forever. As she drives away from him, the painter contemplates the number of lovers one can have or even need, despite being placidly married. Meanwhile, her lover tries to write to keep himself from driving to the painter's farmhouse. The painter had been his 4th-grade teacher. They'd reconnected after she returned to their hometown in Kentucky following her marriage to a college professor, and they had flirted. That night, he had thought that they would finally consummate their relationship. The painter wavers in her decision to drive home when she looks up and sees her lover still standing where she left him in her rearview window. He stares at his palm and imagines what it would be like to touch her.