Summary

As this story begins, the narrator is with her father, an eighty-six year old man who is sick. The man has heart trouble and is unable to get around much. Sensing his death is near he is offering the narrator some last-minute advice. Then he asks the narrator to write a story that includes "recognizable" characters as well as a description of what happens to them.

The narrator is happy to oblige this request but balks at having to follow the standard formula of identifying the main character before describing the story's plot. Having a specific plot, in the narrator's view, makes the story too contrived and takes away any hope that the characters might have.

Nevertheless, the narrator begins to think of a story and finally decides to write a brief story about a family that lives across the street...