A boy named Jackie thinks about Roger Trewly, a salesman his mother married a year after Jackie’s father shot himself. In Jackie’s opinion, Roger Trewly smiled “like a madman” and eventually jumped off a bridge and into a river, but no one was surprised by his suicide.  A year later, in 1952, Jackie and his sister, LaDonna, compliment their mother when she dresses up for a date for the first time since Roger’s death. Their mother’s date, a rich man named Gent, who owns a creamery, proposes a few weeks later and invites the family to his home as she considers. Gent shows Jackie and LaDonna which rooms would be theirs and promises that he would provide for them “handsomely.” Over dinner, when Gent makes his proposal again, LaDonna accepts it for her mother.  The night before the wedding, Gent gives Jackie a new dark blue suit and tie with a trout painted on it and cooks a special dinner for everyone. After the wedding, Jackie sees Gent and his mother kissing outside and thinks to himself that the kiss is quite awkward with Gent being so much larger. That night, Jackie barges into his mother’s bedroom to talk about stories he read in a magazine, but Gent and his mother chastise him for interrupting.  Much later, Jackie’s mother gives birth to a baby named Spencer, whose very large head caused a difficult birth. Gent is very excited about the baby, who he calls his heir, but although Jackie and LaDonna know that Gent loves Spencer more than them, they don’t mind because they also adore the new baby.  One day, the family goes to swim in a nearby lake, and Jackie notices a man trying to impress his mother as he swims near her. Gent and Spencer watch, too, and Jackie realizes how similar they both look.