Two sisters are left alone on a Sunday morning. Their dad is walking to the lighthouse and their mom, a drunk, is still asleep. The girls eat lunch and Barbara Allen, the eldest sister, tells Fid John a story about their father killing a pelican and burying it directly under the seat on which Fid John is sitting. While she argued with the father, the mother got so angry with him that she told him to shoot her. Her drinking and mental health have made it difficult for her to feel secure in their relationship. In response to this, the girls' father shot one of the pelicans. The girls play games at the beach and wait for their father to return. Barbara Allen returns to the house to wake their mother and finds her dead. She takes the key to a box that her father entrusted to her (to be opened if something ever happened to him), as well as some food, and returns to the beach to retrieve her little sister.