Summary

The story opens 35 years after the narrator's husband announced he was in love with someone else. The narrator, a woman named Billie, was in the kitchen with her husband Victor who claimed he had been literally bewitched by his poetry teacher at the community college. Billie and Victor lived in a three-story house with his mother living on the ground floor and Billie's mother on the third floor. Billie and Victor lived with their infant daughter Louise on the second floor. Billie was 25 years old and thought her life was a perfect example of family, chaos, and love. As she considered her husband's announcement, she felt her trust, love, and hope die. There was a glob of syrup that had dried on the kitchen floor where Victor dropped it. Billie said he should clean up after himself, but Victor said...