Summary

After the mother finished looking through the pictures of her family, she thought about all of the hardship and misfortune that she and her husband had faced throughout their lives. However, instead of feeling discouraged by this thought, she concluded that "living does mean accepting the loss of one joy after another" (par. 11). Her resignation to this fact arose from the thought of the "invisible giants hurting her boy" (par. 11) and other innocent people being harmed by situations outside of their control.

When it was close to midnight, the boy's father joined his wife in the living room. He complained that he could not sleep. He mentioned the fact that he was dying, to which his wife stoically replied, "is it your stomach?" (par. 12). After disregarding her comment, the father told his wife that they must remove their son from the mental hospital...