Summary

The story opens with the narrator, Jamie, describing his reaction to the news that his mother has a brain tumor. He hopped in his car and drove recklessly, presumably toward the hospital, though he does not say. Already we sense his ambivalence toward his mother, as he tells us that his self-destructiveness and lapses of concentration are traits he got from her—"any man's mother is a source of grief until she dies"—yet he does not seem to regard these as faults, simply as parts of his personality.

At the hospital, Jamie's mother plays with the remote for the television, seeming not to know its purpose until Jamie uses it to turn on a nature video. A doctor arrives to ask how much his mother has forgotten since the day before. This launches Jamie into reviewing some memories of his...