Sam goes to wake Tommy for school but finds him already up, wearing an eye patch and looking at himself in the mirror. Tommy is now 12 years old and beginning to change physically. Sam asks Tommy what he has planned for the day; Tommy answers that he has nothing planned, but Sam believes the eye patch indicates otherwise. Tommy says he was just playing with it, and that he better get ready for school. Sam doesn’t quite believe Tommy, but he doesn’t want to antagonize him. He will leave the issue of the eye patch to Rosa.

Sam and Rosa live in Bloomtown, a suburban, planned community developed in 1948. Back when he first purchased the home, Sam was nearly overcome with excitement about the prospects of living in a house, and for months he carried around a card that came with the documents of sale and that read “The Clays” with the address of the house below. All of that excitement, however, has long since dissipated: “[Sam] adopted the same policy with regard to [the house] that he followed with his wife, his employment, and his love life. It was all habit” (474). The happiest hour of Sam’s week is the hour he gets to spend alone with Tommy.