Summary

In the 42 years that Ethel and Fergus MacPherson had been married, they had only communicated for seven years. Fergus had had an affair with a neighbor and rather than divorce or forgive him, Ethel divided the house with duct tape and they ignored each other thereafter.

In one weekend, the MacPherson’s daughter, Lisa, was set to visit and Fergus planned to participate in the annual Civil War reenactment in town. Lisa was late because she had stopped to visit her sister, Laurie, on the way to her parents’ house. This was strange as the girls had never been particularly close.

Fergus recalled one year’s civil war days at which he and Charlene Bibber had had a “fling” which had seemed extra exciting at the time given the “surprise… and the hustling of getting that damned hoop...