Chapter I, Pages 1 through 36 Summary

Ursa is a singer at Happy's Café but her husband, Mutt, doesn't like it, saying that the men touch Ursa with their eyes. They argue one evening and Ursa falls down the steps. She goes to the hospital where she's told that her womb will have to come out. Tadpole McCormick, the owner of Happy's, comes to visit her in the hospital and she asks him to take her home when she's released. He takes her back to his place, an apartment above Happy's, saying that Mutt might have bothered her had he taken her home to the Drake where they lived. Ursa, having undergone surgery to remove her womb following the fall, says that she knows she and Mutt will never again be together and soon asks Tadpole to take care of the paperwork to make...