Vacia, a woman who lives with her husband Herb and their daughter Bees in a small suburban neighborhood, likes to keep watch on her neighbors and know all the community gossip. She has good intentions, hoping to keep the neighborhood orderly and pristine. Every once in a while, she sends her daughter around with flowers for all her neighbors. A church down the road annoys her a little because of their frequent meetings and the fact that she doesn't know who the pastor is. A self-proclaimed healer from the church lives with his family in a trailer nearby, to whom Vacia is friendly. One summer, when a new family moves in, Vacia tries to make friends with them, but they are not very talkative. Vacia learns what she can about the family. Her daughter tells her that the woman, Mrs. Meek, looked pregnant when she went to deliver flowers on day. The Meeks also have a dog that barks a lot, annoying Vacia. But one week, she noticed that the dog has stopped barking and that the Meeks' house seems to be quieter than usual. A few days later, when Vacia is in bed and her husband is listening to late-night mysteries on the radio, she hears some commotion outside. A few minutes later, Herb goes outside. Vacia gets up to see what is happening. Herb comes back to the house looking for some tools. He tells Vacia not to get involved and explains what happened. One of the neighbors, who was known for getting back late drunk because the family owned a bar, had found a letter on his porch that made him angry. Thinking it was from the family in the trailer, he threw a brick through their window, which hit a young boy who was sleeping there. Herb took the letter over to the Meeks and Mrs. Meek admitted to writing it, in response to an anonymous letter about the noise from their dog. She assumed it had been from the family with the bar. As Herb explains this to Vacia, she tells him that she wrote the letter about the dog, and had written others like it, even keeping the carbon copies. While the rest of the neighborhood is in turmoil, Vacia absolves herself of guilt, believing that the others will get over it. The next day when a cleaning woman comes over, Vacia tells her about the drama that unfolded the night before. When she tells her about the anonymous letter, the cleaning woman says that people are always complaining about them in the newspaper, but Vacia defends them, saying good can come out of them. Meanwhile, she tells Bee to deliver flowers to cheer everyone up, but Bee returns with all the flowers and tells her mother that nobody came to the door except for the Meeks, who didn't want any flowers. Bee also says that there was a crepe hanging at the trailer, signifying a death in the family.