In 1987, Janice, a housewife in Ohio, receives a phone call from her brother, Don. She hasn't spoken to Don in decades. He’d left their home when he was still a teenage boy after getting in a fight with their father. She wasn’t sure what he’d gone off to do: she imagined he’d continued with his drug addiction and had moved to a city like New York, although her father was sure he hadn’t made it past Akron. Despite her anger at his departure, Janice takes his call. He calls regularly, at around dinnertime every night. He apologizes for leaving her, for the death of their parents, for the death of their brother. She finds it in herself to forgive, despite her husband Alan’s disdainful remarks. One day, the calls stop, and Don never calls again. Janice wonders where he could’ve been calling from; she hopes he had at least had heating.