In mid-June, Artie Dam, a 57-year-old high school history teacher, shares a farewell dinner with his close friend Flossie MacDonald before she moves to Ohio to live near her daughter. Flossie laughs with him and reminisces, admitting that although her late husband Reginald was “an asshole,” she still misses him deeply. When Artie later reports the conversation to his wife, Evie, who works as a family therapist, she responds largely with indifference, not being very fond of Flossie herself. Artie feels a sense of disconnection from Evie, who is often distant with him.

By early September, loneliness has settled over Artie. One day at school, he angrily admonishes a student named Danny Marino for mocking Rhonda Lazarre, a socially awkward fellow classmate. He notes a new anxiety in his students, one that has been present ever since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Artie’s home life is quietly strained. He is haunted by memories of his deceased sister, Maria, and of his mother, who had an unspecified mental illness and sometimes became violent; in Artie’s youth, she was twice institutionalized. Artie and Evie also live under the shadow of a tragedy from 10 years prior, when their son Rob was involved in a car accident that killed his girlfriend, Heather Morrison. Heather’s family blamed Rob for the accident, attempting to sue. Details from the crash led Artie to intuit that Rob and Heather had been engaged in sexual activity at the moment of impact; in that moment, a wordless understanding passed between Artie and his ashamed son. Since then, Rob has been withdrawn and distant from his father.

After reluctantly attending a neighborhood party and chafing at the shallow falseness of the interactions, Artie laments to Evie that their friends conceal their true suffering. This prompts her to recall that Flossie’s late husband, Reginald, used to say, “Each man is an island” (15).

Secretly, Artie has been planning to die by suicide and has been searching for a method that will appear accidental. He concludes that drowning would be the most plausible method, as he habitually goes sailing in the bay. One night, he has a vivid dream of floating in the ocean under a blue sky. The next day, Rob visits unexpectedly to announce that he is in the midst of an amicable separation from his older wife, Francesca, who is a talented concert pianist. Rob now has a new relationship with a woman his age named Rachel. Their conversation is cut short by the arrival of the plumber, Tom Marino—Danny’s father—who breaks down crying and confesses that his wife is having an affair and that Danny already knows. Later, after telling Evie about an unpleasant memory of his mother and receiving an inadequate response, Artie reflects on this sense of disconnection and realizes that he is “lonely enough to die” (32). He recalls how difficult it was for Evie to conceive children and how she “glowed” when she finally got pregnant with Rob.

A few days later, one of his students, Rhonda Lazarre, privately confesses to him that her mother has a mental illness. Against his better judgment, he mentions his own mother’s similar history, reassuring Rhonda that her own “sads will come and go” (35).

The narrative then relates a collage of Artie’s reflections on the past. He recalls the last days of his sister Maria’s life; her child was stillborn, and she died a week later of a brain aneurysm. He dwells on his mother’s mental illness and her physical and emotional abuse, and he remembers his sister as a young girl, sneaking down to the basement to eat confectionery sugar because she “desperately wanted sweetness in her life” (39). 

The next night, Evie recalls a get-together between their family and Flossie’s when both Rob and Flossie’s daughter, Sophie, were quarreling teenagers. Artie recalls that Reginald had openly sympathized with Rob’s frustration over Sophie’s misbehavior. Evie comments that Flossie and Reginald never did have a happy marriage.

On Saturday, Artie goes sailing, and his foot accidentally slips as he climbs from his dinghy to the sailboat. He falls into the cold water, where his water-filled boots pull him down, and he realizes with a sense of unreality that the scene precisely mirrors his recent dream. He loses consciousness just as a motorboat approaches with two men who rescue him.