Summary

When Nina is fourteen, her mother tells her that there is "no such thing as unconditional love" (2). As she and her mother fold laundry, Nina's mother asserts that, among other things, "love for a woman [...] is always conditional on her beauty [...] and sex" (2). Nina's mother also makes it clear that her love for Nina is conditional too.

Nina knows her parents wanted to have more children after her, and remembers that her mother suffered many miscarriages throughout her childhood. She learned to recognize the pregnancies by the disappearance and reappearance of her mother's nightly glass of vodka and diet tonic. By the time Nina turns ten, there are no more pregnancies.

A narrative shift in the next section is indicated by a change of font. In this section, there is a refrigerator "filled with cartons and cartons of eggs" (6). Inside...