Summary

The story begins with the narrator explaining how Heloise's father, Clifford, died when she was twelve. He was in a car accident in France with two women, though he was supposed to be in Germany at the time. One of the women, his lover, was also killed in the crash. The other woman was his lover's friend, and she survived. Heloise used to convince herself that she had gone with her mother to France to see her father in the hospital, but her mother assures her that was not the case.

Now, thirty years later, Heloise still occasionally talks to her mother, Angie, about the incident. Heloise asks Angie if she ever saw her father's lover, Delia, but Angie tells her that Delia was not the lover but "the other one" (2). Heloise's parents had a complicated and contentious relationship. They were politically radical, and...