The novel opens with a conversation between two people in an emergency care clinic. Amanda, a woman visiting from Buenos Aires, lies in the bed. She cannot see, but she feels the texture of her sheets, and she hears a boy, David, speaking into her ear. David is talking about something that he compares to “worms, all over [the body]” (1), and he tells Amanda that it is important for her to discover exactly when the worms came into being. Amanda is unwell and confused, but David refocuses her attention to their conversation.

He asks her to describe the yard outside her rental house, and Amanda tells him she can see his mother, Carla, in the yard. She tells David that she met Carla after arriving at their vacation home and befriended the woman. In Amanda’s memory, Carla wears a distinctive gold bikini and walks toward Amanda’s car. David keeps prodding her with his questions, but Amanda has trouble answering. She claims to be “stuck” and wonders if it is a side effect of the medicine the nurses have given her. She asks David if she will die soon, but the boy only redirects her attention back to the story, urging her to remember every detail.