Anita Harwood gives advice to her daughter, Julie. Winnie, still only 11, tries to mimic her sister’s indifference, as she admires her sister greatly. Julie’s fiancée, Bruce, recently abandoned her. Jim (Anita’s husband but not Julie’s biological father) arrives home. Frustrated, Anita insists that if Julie does not stop crying about the failed wedding, Anita will go “right through the roof” (183). Winnie, in an effort at peacekeeping, offers to make pancakes.

Julie finally consents to shower, but the family soon hears her crying, the shower separated from the hallway by nothing more than a thin curtain. Jim makes Julie a pancake in the shape of the letter “J” (“a J for my jewel” (186), he tells her), and Winnie wonders what happened to the wedding rings. Winnie recalls the day of the would-be wedding: Bruce had arrived at their little home and called it off, and in the aftermath, Winnie had sat on the steps in her bridesmaid dress. Uncle Kyle had brought sleeping pills, effectively putting her devastated sister and mother to sleep.

Jim has spent years building a large boat in the cellar; Winnie wonders how it will fit out of the cellar door, even though Jim claims he has measured carefully.