Ida and her husband, Roy, are two architects living in Chicago. Their marriage has become strained and without intimacy. Their architectural firm is commissioned to design a memorial site after a bombing in St. Louis. Roy is practical-minded, but Ida seems to have lost her taste for the business. Rather, she feels devastated by the deaths and dwells on philosophical thoughts. She wants to make a design that cannot be drawn or described. Roy impatiently listens to her say impractical things such as this. She asks if the sky isn't the best tomb. She wants to make a design that truthfully depicts the afterlife. Roy mocks her.

Roy travels to St. Louis after a glass design is approved. Ida keeps developing far-fetched ideas. He calls her from Chicago to talk business and she presents a new idea. He becomes angry. She asks him who else is in the hotel room, because she imagines a beautiful woman there. She asks him to switch to video and he says he'll have to call her back. She falls asleep talking to herself, proving the feasibility of her ideas for the memorial.

He breaks up with her, never returning home when he comes back to Chicago. When she goes to St. Louis for the memorial ceremony, after the construction of the memorial, she stands back from the ceremony. She watches the birds, thinking about a misted chemical sprayed at memorials to govern people's emotions. She wonders when a person will come into the world unafraid.