Blue’s mother asks him to check out property damage at the camp where she and his father had shouted at each other during his childhood. The sheriff says unknown vandals broke in and threw chairs and furniture over the ledge and broke dishes and windows. Blue was visiting his mother to show her photographs of Grace, his wife and Bonnie, their adopted daughter. After years of professional failures, he’d gotten back on track with an Assertiveness Training class and losing weight. The last time he’d seen his mother was at his father’s funeral. That night, he struggles to sleep on her sofa because of the ashtray’s reek and in the morning he tries to win back his mother’s affection by making breakfast and cleaning the kitchen. After they eat together, he prepares to head up to the camp, packing a sleeping bag, snowshoes, and cans of beef stew. 

It takes only 25 minutes to reach the camp and the place seems smaller and scruffier than he recalls. He climbs up the stairs to his old room and the husks of dead flies are strewn across the windowsills. He retreats back downstairs and unpacks in the kitchen. The next morning, he heats stew and pale bread and studies the interior and imagines renovating the space and bringing Grace and Bonnie to visit during the summer. He walks to the small cliff behind the camp and looks down to find the chairs, pots, pans, forks, and knives. He works all morning to recover the belongings from the snow. He finds a milk can and it reminds him of when his father would take him to Mr. Fitzroy’s barn every evening for sweet milk. In those days, Mr. Fitzroy washes his hands by darting them under scalding water and after the milking he sits on the porch with his wife and plays “Lady of Spain” on his accordion. Blue and his father listen from their car with the windows down and clap when he finishes. Now, Blue guesses that the wife had died and Mr. Fitzroy had become a drunkard. 

He makes a renovation list and drives to the shopping mall in Canker. On his way, he finds Mr. Fitzroy on a bicycle at the bottom of a hill, who asks Blue if he can hitch a ride to the top. He offers to drive the man back to the camp when he’s gotten his supplies. He calls back to New Mexico and Grace is upset when he tells her not to send along the drawings Bonnie made for her grandma, as his mother isn’t the grandmother type. Bonnie gets on the line and makes him promise to bring her presents. When he returns to his car, Mr. Fitzroy says he was about to give up on waiting for him and smells strongly of liquor. He asks if he knows him and Blue tells him his name and reminds him of the accordion. Mr. Fitzroy says that his house and accordion were lost in a fire a couple years ago and that he now lives in the milk room. He says that he wants to sell his land and move with his friend Gilbert out west and pan for gold. He shows Blue a paper that reads “Your own land in Colorado $39.50 per month.” At Mr. Fitzroy’s house, the man invites him inside and Blue finds that the inside is dirty and finds an old toaster that had once been in his parents’ camp. He remembers how he’d tried to make grilled cheese in the toaster, causing an argument to break out between his parents. His mother threw the still-hot machine at his father and Blue runs upstairs and cries. The next day, his dad’s hands are bandaged but the toaster still works and they keep using it. 

Mr. Fitzroy introduces him to Gilbert, a man with round eyeglasses and tanned skin who wears fancy cowboy boots with bright green heels and Blue thinks the man probably bought them right out of prison. Blue leaves quickly and can’t sleep that night as he imagines Gilbert breaking into the building and stealing his toaster. Over the next few days, he repairs the steps, paints shutters, and nails in new shingles. He feels slightly uneasy but feels accomplished by the end of his days. A few days before his flight home, he hears about an incoming storm on the radio and he feels excited and makes a list of things he’ll need, including a toaster. He can smell the storm coming and he rushes to Mr. Fitzroy’s house to retrieve the toaster and he seizes it before the man can stop him. He rushes to the supermarket and buys cocoa mix, pastries, bread, butter, and strawberry preserves. 

Back in his kitchen, he plugs in the toaster and listens as the storm comes in. The next morning, he packs his rucksack and pitches a lemon pie over the cliff’s edge and sees their old toaster sitting at the bottom of the pit. He cannot understand how he’d mistaken Mr. Fitzroy’s for it.