Twelve-year-old Anna Kerrigan accompanies her father, Eddie Kerrigan, to visit a business acquaintance, Dexter Styles, at his Styles’s mansion in Manhattan Beach. Anna is charged with being her “charming self with Mr. Styles’s children” while the men talk business (4). Anna, who accompanies eight-year-old Tabatha Styles to the nursery, knows that the Styles have far more money than the Kerrigans, who lost their wealth in the stock market crash. She keeps her observations to herself so as not to give away her family’s poverty.

When the children go to Manhattan Beach, Anna takes off her shoes despite the low temperature; she wants to feel the cold. Dexter, on the beach talking to Anna’s father, observes that “she’s strong,” which (he assumes) reflects well on her father’s character. While the girls play, the two fathers drive off somewhere to meet an acquaintance of Dexter’s.

Back at the Kerrigans’ sixth-floor walkup, Eddie greets his wife, Agnes Kerrigan, a beautiful former Follies dancer; his feisty half-sister, Brianne; and his “damaged” younger daughter, Lydia, who is disabled. Eddie feels guilty that he struggles to bond with Lydia; he neither shows her the love Agnes would wish nor can he afford to buy Lydia the care she needs.