In 1891, when Lewis Fletcher was five years old, his parents separated. His dad kept Lewis in Florida, and his mom kept his brother in upstate New York. When his father decided that he did not want Lewis, he sent his small child on a train by himself up to New York. Lewis's wife and children learn about this occurrence fifty years later, when the local newspaper publishes it as an anniversary piece. His daughter Sarah likes to bring it up at holidays. Lewis has three children: Howard, Edward, and Sarah. Lewis, in his middle age, is hard of hearing. He and his wife both use hearing aids but like to keep them off to conserve the battery as much as possible. Lewis is especially hard on his eldest son Howard, who he thinks might end up a good-for-nothing like Lewis's brother Reggie. At family dinners, Howard likes to do anything he can to annoy his father, such as call his brother "poopdeck" or hit Edward when he encroaches on what Howard deems his personal space. Sarah then yells loud enough to get her parents' attention until the two turn on their hearing aids and tune into what is happening. Lewis will then give his sons a lecture on hard work and making something out of themselves in life. He tells them that they play too much and that when he was their age he was mowing the lawn and doing chores for his mother and brother. Edward has ways of bothering his father, too, such as putting toothpaste under his nose to appear like boogers or not eating all of his food. The boys never take their father's reprimands seriously, no matter how strict he is or how upset he gets. When Edward grows up and becomes a father himself, he thinks about all the types of a man his father was: a competitor, a golfer, and, in rare moments, a playful man. He thinks the reason his father was so strict on his kids was because of the terrible anxiety of that train ride when he was five years old. Edward tries to not be so hard on his children as his father was on him, but as they grow up, they get into trouble. Edward becomes anxious and eventually comes to pity and even love his father, years after Lewis has passed. Edward has trouble raising his children in the seventies, and somedays finds himself lecturing them, repeating the same mantras that his father used to say to him and Howard.