Joy Delaney has committed her life to an overbearing, petty husband and to their, children, who as they grew denied acknowledging the emotional debt they owed their long-suffering mother, To understand Joy’s complexity entails first understanding how she played tennis in her prime. She never challenged an opponent at the net—she played the low-court game. She’d lay back, patiently returning volley, knowing her opponent was no match for her but always waiting for a moment to deliver a ball she knew was impossible to return. She’d assess the weakness, never give in to emotions, patiently wait, and then at the right moment assert strength.

She strives to give her deeply dysfunctional family the veneer of a loving and supportive harmonic unit. In her determination to create first a Father’s Day celebration and then a Christmas dinner—despite the growing evidence of her family’s failure to find its way to community and support—Joy (as her name suggests) wants only to bring her family joy. She understands how little she can really do—her husband is set in his ways, her grown children each manifest different aspects of an inability to craft successful and long-term relationships. There she is, hanging back, patiently waiting for the opportunity to assert her strength.