The narrator spends an afternoon alone at a coffee shop. She think she sees her mother, though when she follows her to a bank, she sees that it’s someone else entirely, with different facial features. She goes to her daughter’s room later that day and sees that it’s empty, though filled with her daughter’s things. Her daughter is at a summer camp, which her husband drove her to. Her husband also takes the daughter to his mother’s house on the way, and the narrator recalls how uncomfortable it was to sleep in that house, as well as how his mother never seemed to like her. The narrator then recalls how her family was falling apart by the time her daughter became eight and therefore imbued with a strong will. In their disputes, her husband often sided with their daughter.

The narrator tells her husband about the encounter with her passed mother. The conversation is brief, and the narrator lacks an answer when she is asked whether she misses her mother after all. The narrator recalls how she secretly wished for her mother to die so that she can start living. After her mother’s death, she feels immense guilt, as if she killed her herself. The morning after seeing her dead mother, the narrator has breakfast, ventures around her city, and spots a child and babysitter at a playground. She thinks about her own daughter and how she is a child in need of constant attention. She knows that daughters need that sort of presence from their mothers, but she also feels that such presence has been destroying her. Seeing the babysitter aggravated with the child at the playground, the narrator feels a sense of sympathy but also understanding, as she was once a child too. Later that evening, the narrator sleeps in her daughter’s empty bed. She remembers when her daughter was seven and learning how to swim. She feels that her daughter is not actually hers in some sense. She thinks about the child at the playground again.

At the playground, the narrator watches the child again, especially when the babysitter is preoccupied nearby. She encourages her to keep climbing a playground structure, but she falls. The child cries, the babysitter returns, and the narrator is holding her while she bleeds. She learns the child’s name and tells the babysitter to throw out the dirtied dress she was wearing.

The narrator’s daughter sends a letter with a few requests. While out shopping, she stumbles upon the child from the playground with her mother. She recognizes the mother as her husband’s first love. They catch up in the mother’s apartment. The narrator sees the dirtied dress in the garbage can, after which the mother explains that she fired the babysitter. The mother then talks about her recent divorce, and the narrator says that she herself is happy when asked about her life. They find out they are both pedagogues.

In the last few days while her husband and daughter are away, the narrator attends to some chores and spends some time alone in the city. She doesn’t see the child at the playground. She no longer wants to go back to her own apartment. She thinks about what it would be like to move out and be on her own. When she finally returns to her apartment, she believes that she can bear this family. On her answering machine, she hears her husband and daughter saying that they miss her.