Francie McIntyre is a slob, and Jessica, her roommate at their expensive boarding school, nags her about leaving her socks on the floor. In the middle of their bickering, Cynthia, the secretary, arrives to summon Francie to the office, where the principal, Mrs. Peck, informs Francie that her mother has died of an embolism while being treated for a broken hip in the hospital at Albany. Francie panics, having no family to rely on, and on the bus to Albany reviews in her mind her relationship with her mother, who was a “proud” woman: “Proud of her poverty. Proud of her poor education. Proud of her unfashionable size. Proud of bringing up her Difficult Daughter. Without an Iota of Help.” Francie remembers how in her interview at the prestigious private school she attends, she had imagined how stylish the other girls’ mothers must be. Thoughts of her “poor mother!” bring a few “companionable tears” to her cheeks.

In Albany, Francie visits her home, now empty following her mother’s death, finding in the sink a dirty coffee cup she had left there three weeks earlier. As she sits, pensive, at the kitchen table, her mind goes back to the day in her childhood when her mother had explained to her that her father had died when hit by a bus. Before that, his disappearance before she was born had been a mystery to her.

At the hospital, Francie is bewildered by the need to make decisions, and she tells Miss Healy, the nurse, “I just don’t know what to do.” She is finally directed to the funeral home: “Owned and operated by Luther and Theodore T. Ade. When you’re in need, call for Ade.” She is astonished at being told by one of the Ades that her mother had named Kevin McIntyre, presumably Francie’s father, as her next of kin, and she faints. When she awakens, she is given a cardboard box holding her mother’s ashes.

The next day, Francie calls the Ades and gets Kevin McIntyre’s address on West Tenth Street in New York City. On the bus she meets a sympathetic woman, Iris Ackerman, who imparts the dumfounding news that her mother had once been in an accident involving a blimp crashing into a building. Francie’s annoyed response to this revelation elicits the answer that there are things we cannot understand and, “You see, people tend to settle for the first explanation. People tend to take things at face value.” Iris Ackerman turns out to be severely disturbed with paranoid fantasies. Francie, though, admires her because she tries “To really figure things out.”

Francie finds the apartment of Kevin McIntyre, but another man opens the door and tells her that McIntyre is out. He identifies himself as Alex and offers Francie coffee or a drink. When Francie rejects his offer to take her box with the ashes, Alex remarks on her diffidence: “You’re not a very demanding guest, you know.” He then comments on what a strange day it has been, “Starting with the blimp.” This mystifying dialogue concludes with Francie taking note of the room, which she terms “Pretty and pleasantly messy, with interesting stuff all over the place.” As she imagines Kevin McIntyre walking back to the apartment, Francie thinks that “he was going to have to deal with her soon enough.”