The following version of the short story was used to create the guide: Saunders, George. "Mother's Day." The New Yorker, 2016.

George Saunders's short story "Mother’s Day" is written from a third person free indirect point of view in the past tense. The story's events are contained to a few moments in time and a fixed location. However, the author's frequent use of flashback complicates the narrative structure and induces frequent temporal and spatial shifts. The following summary employs the present and past tenses, and does not adhere to an entirely linear form.

On Mother's Day, Pammy and Paulie Carlson fly into town to visit their mother, Alma. Because Paulie is jet lagged, he stays home to sleep, while Pammy takes Alma out for lunch. Afterwards, Pammy and Alma take a long walk up Pine Street, heading in the direction of the house.

While walking, Pammy makes positive, excited commentary about their pleasant surroundings. Alma is disinterested in her daughter's falsity. She thinks her kids are just trying to suck up to her for all their bad behavior in the past. Though they were smart and confident as children, Alma believes they have turned into disappointing adults. Pammy dresses poorly. Both she and Paulie work menial jobs, and they are both too obsessed with narrating their emotional experiences.

Before they were born, Alma was happy in her marriage with Paul, Sr. They had sex often, and Alma felt happy. However, after the birth of their children, everything changed. Pammy and Paulie misbehaved, and made their home life difficult. Irritated by Alma's maternal distractions and his children's rowdiness, Paul began drinking heavily and sleeping around. Desperate to win back his attention, Alma tried to make herself appealing. Though this sometimes worked, she could not stop Paul from drinking or philandering.

Suddenly, Alma looks up and sees Paul's ex-lover Debi up ahead sweeping the walk. She thinks Debi looks awful, remembering what an outcast she was in their adolescence. She still blames Debi for Paul's disloyalty. He had loved Debi too much, and it ruined their marriage.

When Debi sees Alma, she is shocked. She thinks about how miserable and cruel Alma has always been, wondering when God will punish her. As soon as she has the thought, however, Debi challenges herself. She has made her own share of mistakes, too. She then begins remembering her litany of romantic entanglements. Instead of cursing herself for these affairs, she thinks of her former self with kindness and pride. She has always been a free and open person. Of all of these relationships, her affair with Paul was the most significant. They had truly made each other happy. Then he died, and she has been alone ever since.

A storm breaks out, and the sky begins pouring down rain and hail. Alma and Pammy run for cover on a neighbor's lawn. Seeing their distress, Debi decides to offer her assistance, but Alma dismisses her. Frustrated, Debi runs inside and pretends to work on her taxes. Meanwhile, Alma is plunging back into her own despair. Overcome by anger at Debi's offer of help, Alma has a heart attack.

In the moments before her death, she has a series of hallucinations. She sees Paul, and a baby boy and girl. She also sees a series of fierce hyenas. When the baby girl repeatedly questions who she really wants to be, Alma has a revelation.

A few minutes later, Debi looks outside to see the paramedics pulling a sheet over Alma's face.