- Valerian, Margaret, and Jade sit down to dinner. Margaret is dawdling and holding up the courses of the meal, which annoys Valerian because he wants to get to dessert. Jade tries to defend her.
- When we get Margaret's thoughts, we hear that she has a bit of a problem making sense of the world around her sometimes. She isn't drunk, though. It sounds like she has some sort of neurological disorder. Her hands don't grab things properly and she has a tough time remembering what certain objects are supposed to do.
- Margaret and Valerian start bickering again about the pace of the meal, but Jade interrupts and asks them to talk about something nice—like Christmas.
- Margaret takes the wooden salad forks and gets herself some salad with them. When she's done, she puts the forks down on the tablecloth instead of back in the bowl, which provokes Valerian to shout at her. She doesn't think it's a big mistake, but Valerian seems to be certain that she's drunk.
- Jade gets back to the Christmas plans, and Margaret tells her that Jade that her son Michael will be coming. Valerian sneers at this, since he's certain that Michael will never come.
- Margaret also reveals her secret weapon for getting Michael to come. She has invited Michael's favorite professor, B.J. Bridges, to come visit for Christmas, too. Valerian says that neither one of them will come. He and Margaret bicker some more.
- Jade usually doesn't take their fighting too seriously, but she can tell that more menace than usual is creeping into it.
- They argue about how Margaret wouldn't let Michael go visit Valerian's sister when he was young because Valerian's sister (according to Margaret) was always cruel to Margaret. Now it sounds like this sister invites Michael to her children's weddings, but not Valerian or Margaret.
- It turns out that when Margaret first met Valerian's sister, she (Marg) was wearing a cross. But Valerian's sister told her that only whores wore crosses. How's that for a first impression? Also: WTF is up with that statement?
- Margaret becomes so offended that she gets up from the dinner table and storms away. Valerian apologizes to Jade, who tells him that he shouldn't tease Margaret so much.
- Valerian admits that the reason he's actually staying at the island so much is to protect his son Michael from his mother. He thinks that his son—who is nearly thirty—is too soft because he has always relied on his mommy. Valerian hopes that Michael will toughen up if he's away from his mother.
- Jade argues that Michael isn't as soft as Valerian thinks. She has only met Michael twice, and in one of those meetings, he told her that she had abandoned "her people" (i.e. black people) by educating herself in Europe and posing in white people's magazines. She makes a joke about it, but it's clear that Michael's comments have affected her.
- Valerian tries to make Jade feel better by criticizing Michael's radical left-wing politics and calling him a naïve idealist.
- Jade admits that she felt bad about what Michael told her. She felt bad about the fact that she likes classical "white" music more than traditional "black" gospel music, or the fact that she thinks Picasso is a way better artist than the Africans whose masks inspired him. Frankly, she thinks that white culture is more "complex" and "advanced" than the kind of black culture Michael would want her to identify with. See how many quotation marks we're using?
- Valerian blames Margaret for filling Michaels' head with a bunch of flighty and ridiculous ideas about people and the world.
- Jade says Valerian shouldn't hate his son so much, but Valerian says it's just the opposite. He loves his son more than anything. If anything, he believes that Margaret doesn't love Michael nearly as much as she pretends.
- Valerian remembers times when Michael was just a young child, maybe two or three. Valerian would come home from work and find Michael hiding in a bathroom cabinet. Not just that, but he found Michael holding himself and singing a sad, lonely song while he was hiding. The sadness of this memory has always had a powerful effect on Valerian.
- He also mentioned that Margaret was very fickle with Michael when he was young. She would lose interest in him for weeks at a time, then try all sorts of news ways to get his attention when she wasn't bored anymore.
- As Michael got older, Margaret (according to Valerian) would do all kinds of weird things—like make threats against herself—to make him pay attention to her.
- In any case, Valerian is happy that Michael hasn't been in contact with his mother, since it will hopefully help him get out from under her thumb. Cue the Rolling Stones.
- Despite Valerian's sharing of this personal story, Jade has trouble not yawning.
- At this point, Margaret shows up in the doorway of the dining room, screaming her head off. Valerian asks her what's wrong, but she's too flustered to say.
- Margaret starts mumbling about something in her closet. Valerian thinks it's all silly, but the butler Sydney gets a pistol and goes upstairs to have a look. Shortly afterward, he returns with his gun pointing into the back of a black man with dreadlocks.
- When Valerian sees the intruder, he offers the man a drink. Apparently, he thinks he's some sort of James Bond villain now.