An unnamed 24-year-old woman goes back home to live with her mother in modern Connecticut. Her mother is suffering from cancer, although the doctor is certain that she’ll survive, and the protagonist is taking care of her, as well as her mother’s recent baby boy. She finds a job as a substitute teacher at the local middle school, and when she’s not at work, she also sleeps with a few men. Her favorite sex partner is the principal of the school. The principal’s fragile son, Timmy, is in the protagonist’s class, and she’s taking a liking to him because he is gentle.

The protagonist’s father asks her to visit her half-sister, Beth, but the protagonist puts it off. She busies herself with the world around her: she visits the mall with her little brother, bathes her mother, and contemplates whether she would make a good mother. She asks the principal about this last point, but he offers a disinterested reply. One day, a little girl on the playground is carrying around a dead mole and the principal asks the protagonist to help get the mole away from the little girl; the woman fails, letting her fear get the best of her. She weeps to her mother, convinced that she’ll never be a good mother. She decides never to sleep with the principal again.

The protagonist tries to turn her life around. She goes on dates with a nice man, Billy, and she finally visits her sister Beth. While in Beth’s dorm room, the woman receives a text from the principal, the first in a long while. She doesn’t even try to fight the urge to respond: she excuses herself to go to the bathroom and tells him that she’ll see him soon.