The narrative flashes back to when Stafford and Agnes first moved to Los Angeles. Though charming, Agnes had a volatile temper that threatened Stafford’s rising career in network television. When they were finally accepted into a prestigious country club, Stafford’s attempt to explain the nuances of golf etiquette to an eager Agnes backfired. He told her she couldn’t just “whack at the ball” and needed to take the game seriously (15), which she interpreted as an insult to her intelligence. The conversation escalated into a vicious fight, a common occurrence in their early years of marriage. She eventually agreed to take lessons and became a skilled, natural golfer.

Stafford contrasts his curated country-club experience with how he learned to play golf as a teenager in Ontario. He and his childhood best friend, Bobby Shepherd, were too young to play at the local course, which was managed by a man whom Stafford’s father had fired for stealing from the hired men. To get around this, they would sneak onto the course late at night, playing by moonlight with Bobby’s dog, Skidder, helping them find the balls. Back in the present on Maui, Stafford finds Kelly cleaning the kitchen and leaves to give Agnes her coffee. He checks her planner, noting her busy schedule, and glances at a photo of a young girl in a bathing suit on her desk.

Stafford reflects on his and Agnes’s estranged daughter, Callie, who’s now in her mid-twenties. While Agnes holds out hope for a family reconciliation, Stafford believes it’s impossible. He remembers Callie’s difficult birth, which was a traumatic experience for both him and Agnes, and her unsettled infancy. Overwhelmed, they hired a series of nannies, and their household staff grew with their wealth. As their social standing in Los Angeles rose, they were pressured by friends into enrolling Callie in a prestigious and competitive preschool, Westhaven, when she was only three. Stafford detested the elitist environment but ceded the day-to-day decision-making to Agnes.

Stafford compares the high expectations placed on Callie to those placed on his older brother, Emmett. While Stafford was largely spared their father’s discipline, Emmett was constantly criticized for being unreliable and difficult and was hit by their father. Stafford recalls a photograph of Emmett as a boy and sees a resemblance to Callie, which troubles him. He remembers his own difficult first day of school, where, as a Catholic in a Protestant school, he was instructed to leave the room during the Lord’s Prayer. He ran into Bobby’s desk when he hurried from the classroom and felt humiliated. At the end of the school day, he sought comfort from Emmett but found his older brother’s advice unhelpful. Stafford notes that Emmett was named after a relative, a 13-year-old boy who died in a hunting accident.

Agnes waits impatiently for Kelly to finish her work so that she can smoke. Since moving to Maui, Agnes has secretly started smoking again during the two hours each morning when Stafford is out of the house. She reflects on her past and her negative experiences with therapy, bored with her own story of being a wealthy, unhappy woman. She carries unprocessed grief for her first child with Stafford, a son who died hours after birth.

A flashback reveals that during her first pregnancy in Kingston, Ontario, an early ultrasound showed that the baby had anencephaly, a fatal condition where the skull and brain do not fully form. Stafford, invoking his strict Catholic upbringing, refused to consider terminating the pregnancy, threatening divorce and annulment. Resentful, Agnes secretly went to the university’s medical library to find images of anencephalic babies so that she would know what to expect, but she kept this knowledge from Stafford, wanting him to suffer. The baby was delivered via C-section. When the newborn was placed in Stafford’s arms, he became despondent, refused to relinquish the baby, and struck the priest who tried to baptize the infant. In the springtime of the following year, they left Kingston for Los Angeles, leaving behind Stafford’s academic career and his religious convictions.

Stafford returns from his morning walk with jelly donuts, which Agnes refuses to eat. She’s busy planning to replace the reflecting pools on the east side of the house with gardens and flowers. They discuss the fact that a security gate was left open, and Stafford agrees to call the security company to have the codes reset. He goes up to his second-floor office, a large, open space that Agnes thinks is impractical. He had told her that he intended to use the space to finally finish his doctoral thesis on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, a claim she dismissed.

Stafford reflects on his academic past. At Queen’s University, he abandoned a biology degree to study philosophy. In response, his mother withdrew her financial support because she wanted him to become a veterinarian. He was a brilliant student, but his marriage to Agnes, an uneducated American he met while bartending at the campus pub, shocked his academic community. Back in the present, Agnes becomes impatient, and they leave for her tennis lesson. Stafford is preoccupied, hoping to wait for the mail, but Agnes rushes him out. He’s unaware that a letter from Canada, with the name “Shepherd” on the back, has just been delivered.

The day is unusually beautiful and calm. Stafford drives Agnes to her tennis lesson with the car’s top down, and they share a rare, lighthearted moment, laughing at one of his father’s old jokes. At the tennis club, located at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Stafford watches Agnes play with her handsome young instructor. Afterward, they decide to walk up the hill from the tennis courts to the hotel spa for Agnes’s manicure appointment. Stafford walks too quickly, irritating Agnes, and their pleasant mood evaporates into an argument.

During lunch on the hotel terrace, the oppressive heat and stillness make everyone lethargic. Stafford finds himself staring at a well-dressed elderly man who reminds him of his uncle Frank. He tells Agnes about his uncle, who was cheated out of his inheritance, a family farm, and ended up working as a prison guard at Collins Bay Penitentiary. He recalls that his uncle married a Protestant woman and eventually moved to Toronto. Agnes is only half-listening as Stafford gets lost in his memories of his family’s long history in Ontario.

While at lunch, Stafford becomes increasingly irritable, and his face flushes, concerning Agnes. She worries about his health, remembering that several men in his family have died young from heart problems. Though she has often wished him dead in moments of anger, she can’t imagine life without him. They share a rare moment of intimacy when she calls him “darling,” and he agrees to get the car while she pays the bill. 

Alone, Agnes reflects on their difficult marriage and the bitter fight about Callie that led to her temporarily moving into the pool house. Callie was arrested for unlawful sexual confinement of a minor after she took home a 17-year-old waiter she met at a restaurant. Stafford was consumed with shame over Callie’s foolishness, while Agnes saw it as a reckless mistake, not a crime. This disagreement culminated in a massive fight on Christmas Eve, after which Agnes lived separately in the pool house for 40 days.

Back in the present, Agnes finishes lunch and goes outside to find Stafford, but he isn’t there. The valet captain informs her that their car is still parked at the tennis club. Overcome with anxiety, Agnes ignores the offer of a shuttle and begins running down the path toward the beach to find him. She passes the Honokahua Burial Site, a sacred hillside where ancient Hawaiian graves were discovered during the hotel’s construction.

After leaving the restaurant, Stafford plans his afternoon, determined to bring structure back to his day and return to his intellectual work on Aristotle. As he walks past the poolside bar, he encounters Bruce Brown, a former professional acquaintance from their Los Angeles television years. Bruce, intoxicated and belligerent, accuses Stafford of having him fired years ago. As Stafford walks away from the unpleasant encounter, he’s distracted, trips over a child’s toy, and falls hard, scraping his hands and knees.

Humiliated and in pain, Stafford walks past the tennis club and continues toward the beach. Driven by some vague feeling of necessity, he continues to the sand dunes, stands there uncertain and afraid, and then walks into the ocean. The narrative then flashes back to Stafford’s birth. He was a premature “footling breech” baby, delivered at home during a blizzard by a local midwife named Hester van Bosch. Born not breathing, he was saved by Hester’s intervention. She later warned his parents to keep him away from water.

Agnes runs toward the beach, frantic. She finds Stafford standing knee-deep in the turbulent water at DT Fleming Beach, a dangerous area known for its powerful shore break. As she gets closer, she sees a riptide forming near him. He turns, laughs, and spreads his arms wide before a large wave hits him from behind, knocking him down and pulling him out into deeper water. He struggles to surface, swallows water, and is swept farther from shore. Agnes, a competent swimmer, runs into the ocean to save him, grabbing a foam pool noodle on her way.

Fighting the cold water and waves, she reaches Stafford, who’s panicking. Together, using the noodle for flotation, they struggle back to shore. A small crowd has gathered, offering towels and assistance once they reach the beach. Exhausted and shaken, they laugh hysterically. Stafford vomits seawater while Agnes pats him on the back. They return home and, without speaking, take separate baths. Later, wrapped in robes by the pool, Agnes brings them a simple meal of poached eggs and toast, which Stafford calls “nursery food,” reminding him of his childhood. They fall asleep in the poolside recliners and stay there all night. 

The next morning, Stafford goes inside to make coffee and opens the mail, finding the letter from Canada. When Agnes comes in, he tells her that Marilyn and Donny Shepherd have died in a car accident and have named him the legal guardian of their four young children. A stunned Agnes insists that he must refuse. Stafford, sobbing, explains that Donny was the son of his deceased childhood friend, Bobby.