Baker visits his mother, Lucy Elizabeth Baker, in a nursing home. She has become senile since her last bad fall and does not remember Baker. He notes how small and frail his mother has become, though she has always been fierce, formidable, opinionated, and active, believing only the strong and vocal survive. During a doctor’s examination, Lucy cannot answer where or how old she is, but she remembers her birth month, day, and year because it is Guy Fawkes Day. The doctor does not know who Guy Fawkes is, and Lucy tells him he may know about medicine but is ignorant of history.

At the onset of Lucy’s senility, Baker wants “to argue her back to reality” by correcting her misperceptions. Gradually, he realizes that breaking from reality allows her to return to times when she felt needed and was surrounded by people she loved.

He recalls visiting her in Baltimore three years earlier. Following the visit, he wrote her a letter telling her to pick up her spirits. He had meant it as a pep talk but acknowledges it read more like a threat that he would stop visiting if she were not more cheerful. She responded that her unhappiness stemmed from feeling “tired and lonely” (14).