An old man is sick in a hospital room with an unspecified illness. The man’s younger brother has come to visit, and the man begins to tell his brother about his memories and the wisdom he has gained with age. The man tells the brother that a woman a few doors down from him in the hospital had been an acquaintance of his when he worked in oil as a young man in Penang, Malaysia. He and Mrs. Carter were in the same circle of relatively wealthy American expats. He tells the story of how Mrs. Carter, her three children, and the children’s French governess had been on the same ship from San Francisco to Shanghai, and how the man had attempted to seduce the governess until Mrs. Carter told him to stop. When the ship docked, they remained friendly acquaintances. In the man’s attempts to cultivate memories of his wife, Nancy, when she was young, the man has thought a lot about Mrs. Carter and her children. Thus, the man and Mrs. Carter begin to send messages back and forth to each other via nurses to recollect that time in their lives. Their messages are specific memories that the two would share from their time in Penang, such as the look of a doctor they knew, and other memories from their circle. After sending messages back and forth with Mrs. Carter, he learns that she has cervical cancer, and only a few days to live. Her last message to the man is “the fireflies that lit up all at once,” which reminds him of a phenomenon in Penang where suddenly all the fireflies would light up into one giant glow. This reminds the man of memory as a whole.