Two identical houses split a three-acre lawn. In the middle lies a massive fig tree, which immediately convinces Josephus Ramekian, a Greek Jew, to buy one of the houses for himself and his thirteen-year-old son, Robert. The other is the home of The Sisters of the Order of St. Theresa.

When spring arrives, Josephus plans to acquire some figs, but he distrusts the sisters, given their Roman Catholicism and his Greek Judaism, and does not want to approach them alone. He uses his son, Robert, as an emissary; the boy's friendship with Kathleen, the orphaned niece of the nuns' housekeeper, has helped him meet some of them. One day, the two walk over and meet Sister Gloria, who has discovered in Robert a great aptitude for math. Against the odds, Gloria and Josephus hit it off, and agree to pick the figs together.

Later that summer, Kathleen and Robert have begun to spend more time together as their parents have grown closer. The former take walks and eat ice cream, while the latter pick figs and discuss their faiths. In fact, Josephus and Gloria grow so close as to brush up against the latter's vows.

One day, everything changes when Miss Cleary, Kathleen's niece, comes to pick figs instead of Gloria. Josephus returns from their conversation irate. It is clear that no more contact between the two houses will occur. Josephus's distrust of gentiles spills over to his son, who realizes that he must break things off with Kathleen, even if the adults fail to do it for him. Resentment rises in his throat as he listens to the fig tree sway in the wind.