- Okay, the first paragraph is a bit of an info dump. "Gram is worried about me," the narrator tells us, not because "my sister Bailey died four weeks ago, or because my mother hasn't contacted me in sixteen years, or even because suddenly all I think about is sex." Whoa, narrator—you want to introduce yourself first?
- Turns out Gram is worried about the narrator because she believes one of their houseplants represents the narrator, and that houseplant has spots. (Metaphor much?)
- Gram discusses the plant's condition with Uncle Big, who is described as the house's pothead and arborist, i.e. informal plant doctor. He, very dramatically (because of his booming voice), pronounces the plant's condition to be "very serious."
- The narrator tries to ignore them. She scribbles a poem in the margins of Wuthering Heights; she claims to have no use for talking.
- Eventually, Gram and Uncle Big stop talking and sit on the couch next to the main character; the three of them sit there staring into space for the rest of the afternoon. We're told this is how things have been since the main character's sister, Bailey, collapsed one month earlier from an arrhythmia.
- So basically, no one is doing well, everything is intense, and we still don't know the narrator's name.