Summary

The story opens with a section titled "Silences" in which the narrator and his partner, Elaine, are hosting a group of friends for dinner. After the meal, everyone sits in the living room describing the loudest sounds they have ever heard. A man named Chris Case changes the subject to the most silent thing he has ever heard, which was the landmine taking off his right leg in Afghanistan. No one had been aware that Chris had lost a leg up until now. When a woman named Deirdre asks if they can see it, Chris says only if she kisses it. Deirdre eventually agrees. However, when Chris removes his prosthesis and holds his scarred stump up, she begins to cry. A man named Ralph Jones breaks the silence by recounting a time he witnessed Chris beat up two...