The following version of this short story was used to create the guide: Moore, Lorrie. "Face Time." The Best Short Stories 2022: The O. Henry Prize Winners. Vintage Anchor Publishing, 2022.

Lorrie Moore's short story "Face Time" is written from the first person point of view of an unnamed narrator. The story is set during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown and presented in the past tense. Although the narrative takes some liberties with structure and form, the following summary abides by a primarily linear mode of explanation.

The narrator's father Dan Fordham left Berrywood, the assisted-living facility where he had been living, to get a surgery on his hip. When he emerged from the procedure, the doctors told the narrator and her sisters Livvy and Delia that everything had gone well. However, Dan was unable to leave the hospital as he had contracted the coronavirus. Until he tested negative, the hospital could not permit him to leave their care.

Because the narrator was on lockdown, she could not visit her father in the hospital. She was forced to communicate with him via FaceTime. While on one of her first calls with him following the surgery, the narrator tried to explain Dan's situation without upsetting or scaring him. Although Dan had seemed mentally stable prior to the surgery, because he was on hydroxychloroquine, he seemed disoriented and disconnected from reality. The narrator tried to ignore his hallucinations and to talk about real things. She was glad she could see him via the application, but hated the ways in which technology inhibited real human conversation. She therefore decided to offer her father a succession of facts about the coronavirus in order to engage, distract, and entertain him. Although the conversation was not going as planned, the narrator tried to maintain a positive outlook.

The next time the narrator talked to her father, her older sister Livvy initiated a group FaceTime call. Their younger sister Delia was the only one who did not participate. As the eldest sister, Livvy had a penchant for bossing people around. She tried to control the conversation by singing Dan's favorite army songs from his time in World War II. The narrator was immediately disenchanted with the idea. She became even more upset when Dan started to have a fit she could neither understand nor control. She hung up the call, unable to watch her father's suffering.

The next time the narrator tried to talk to Dan, he was asleep. The nurse feigned cheeriness, but the narrator felt upset. Afterwards, she called Delia. Delia was always her father's favorite, but she refused to talk to Dan in his current condition. She had had a lucid conversation with him prior to his surgery. She told the narrator she would not talk to him again until he was better. The narrator tried to believe that this day would come. However, she silently doubted her father would recover.

The narrator waited hours and hours for the nurses to arrange the next call with Dan. In the middle of the night, the call finally came through. Even before she picked up the phone, she knew what the nurses would say.

After hearing that her father had died, the narrator went to bed. She wondered what Dan had thought about before passing away, if anything.

The following day, a storm began to brew while the narrator sent emails with the news of her father's death. Shortly thereafter, her town lost power. For the next six days, the narrator had no electricity, internet, or phone. This period augmented her isolation and disconnection. Without her usual forms of technological distraction, she could not turn away from her sorrow, confusion, and despair. She began to question her identity, her thoughts, and her beliefs. Once the power returned, she felt her mind gradually reawakening.