Finally. The Story Something has happened to Miles that makes him hyper-sensitive to even the most innocuous sights and sounds around him. He arrives at a four-family apartment building in an urban part of a midwest metro region looking for cheap housing and a place to take stock. The landlord is Larry who has closed the bar on the ground floor but left if open for himself, and therefore, all the tenants. Miles meets Margo who, like him, is searching for something. The two fall in love -- to the degree that two troubled people can. Miles is give a series of medical diagnoses which he interprets as death sentences but each is, in turn, shown to be relatively common maladies that go away on their own. But then comes the big one: a diagnosis of a serious illness that leads to an agonizing end. Even Margo, with her logical approach, can't dismiss this one. Margo is troubled, conflicted: her last lover died of some other fatal illness and she can't go through such an ordeal again. She debates walking away from Miles and the apartment where she has come to know the other people as well. She later indicates she's had a brief relationship with a man she met in the neighborhood but it didn't relieve her conflicted state regarding Miles. However, when Miles explains about how he got the diagnosis, Margo becomes suspicious that the doctor ignored everything Miles must have told him, which would have made the diagnosis unlikely. Nonetheless, by this time, Miles has disappeared and all suspect he's gone to take his own life. Flo has been dependent on Eb all their married life. They live in Larry's apartment building too. Flo is unhappy about her life but it's too late to pack it in so she stays. She visits the home where her mother lives once a month. Her mother is dying with dementia. Gradually, Flo betrays signs of dementia herself. She is aware of this but tries to cover it up. By the end, she still has enough presence of mind to think about doing herself in but something happens that might stop her. Eb, Flo's husband, is the stable provider. He is proud of his own lack of major signs of aging except for eyebrows that go crazy unless he plucks. But he too may be in denial about a problem with his legs -- important to Eb because he is an indefatigable walker and stationary bike aficionado. Eb betrays his troubled state when he and Flo play Scrabble and he can't concentrate -- she beats him roundly. He is almost physically abusive, which he has never been before. He and Flo ultimately find that they can support each other as they have all their lives which may not be a fairy tale life but is all they have. They can't undo the past. Larry operates his building -- a bar on the ground floor, two floors above with a total of four apartments -- as though it's an alternative world of safety for him. It's how he earns the money that keeps him. He has reportedly closed up the ground floor bar years before. Nobody knows a time when it was open. He participates with his tenants in their conversations but seems to feel like he shouldn't. Otherwise he stays in the background and seems to have no life. When Feather's father dies he appears to want to take care of her. It's known that he's allowing her to fall into arrears. When she goes Goth, Larry doesn't quite know what to make of it. Finally, when Feather tells him he is too old, he is despondent, angry with himself for having allow himself to develop feelings. He doesn't know how to handle these feelings. Feather is young, maybe twenty or so, taking care of her father in an apartment on the second floor. She knows something is not right about her life but has a sense of Biblical duty that keeps her in her role. When the father dies, her world turns upside down. Taking care of herself is hardly something she knows how to do. How to relate to other people her own age? Feather eventually runs into some other young people who introduce her to the Goth culture. She adopts the dress, makeup, etc., and seems to be leaving her caretaker role behind, though she mentions that she has another relative who maybe can't take care of himself anymore. Finally, she is presented with the choice of the financial security of becoming the caretaker of this relative or going it on her own.