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Summary

• Mel is talking as the story opens and the narrator, Nick, gives a description of the scene in Mel's kitchen.

• Mel, his wife, Terri, Nick, and his wife, Laura, are seated at a table in Mel and Terri's kitchen in Albuquerque.

• The time of day is late afternoon and the two couples are passing gin, tonic, and an ice bucket around the table.

• Mel, a cardiologist, discusses how his five years at a seminary were imperative to his knowledge about spiritual love.

• Terri says that her most dramatic encounter with love was with her previous boyfriend, Ed.

• Ed was extremely abusive and beat Terri up on several occasions because he could not possess her totally.

• At one point, Ed tried to kill Terri because he loved her so intensely.

• Mel and Terri enter a debate about whether abusive behavior is or is not love.

• Terri asserts that...

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