A seventeen-year-old girl meets a boy at a neighbor’s party and knows they will marry. When they kiss, the boy asks about the green ribbon tied around the girl’s neck. As they begin to explore a sexual relationship, the boy’s curiosity about the ribbon grows but the girl forbids him to touch it. They marry young. While honeymooning in Europe, the narrator becomes pregnant. After giving birth to a son without a ribbon, she receives an episiotomy. Under anesthesia, she hears her husband asking the doctor to sew her up with an extra stitch. Between narrating her marriage, her pregnancy, the birth of the couple’s son, and the son’s coming of age, the girl-woman-narrator reflects on stories she loves. Many are about girls, women, or mothers interacting with ghosts, illness, or violence. The narrator often gives instructions to readers for how to read this story aloud. Throughout their life together, the woman gives her husband whatever he desires sexually but still will not allow him to touch the ribbon. One night, he touches it while pinning her down. On another night, he demands she not keep secrets. When her son begins elementary school, the woman enrolls in an art class where she meets a woman with a red ribbon tied around her ankle. After feeling attracted to this woman and buying her coffee, she is overwhelmed with shame and never returns to class.   When their son graduates high school and moves away, the couple has sex in their newly empty house. The woman finally allows her husband to unravel her green ribbon. When he unties the ribbon, her head rolls off her body, the ribbon having kept it tied to her neck.