Alice Stern visits her father, Leonard Stern, in the hospital, though he’s often too weak to speak with her or recognize her presence. Leonard’s undiagnosed illness is difficult to manage because there are no available treatments; he is simply dying slowly as one part of his body after another shuts down without apparent cause. 

Alice lets her mother, Serena, know that she visited Leonard and that his condition remains the same—a message Serena acknowledges but does not engage with. Serena left their family to live in a wellness community when Alice was six, leaving her father with sole custody. Now 39 and an only child, Alice doesn’t wish her parents had stayed together, but she does wish she had help looking after her father. Serena is caring but largely absent, having let New Age advice and gifts of healing crystals stand in for parental guidance for the bulk of Alice’s life.

Alice reflects on her lifestyle and living situation. She and her boyfriend, Matt, live apart: Alice in the same affordable Brooklyn studio she’s lived in since age 25, and Matt on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Alice grew up. Alice likes this arrangement.