The story begins with the narrator, Daisy, recounting her birth in 1905. Her mother, Mercy, a 30-year-old overweight woman, and her father, Cuyler Goodwill, a "pick and nibble fellow,” live in Tyndall, Manitoba, Canada (1). Mercy was born at the Stonewall Orphans Home in 1875 and given the surname “Stone” as was the practice for orphans whose lineage was unknown. Daisy’s parents met when a door sill of the orphanage needed repair, and Cuyler, a mason, was called to fix it. He fell in love with Mercy and courted her, and they married in 1903.

On the day of Daisy’s birth, Mercy is making a Malvern pie for supper when she begins feeling sick, like "a shift in the floor of her chest, rising at first, and then an abrupt drop, a squeezing like an accordion held sideways" (4). She often feels sick but does not feel comfortable talking to her doctor, Dr. Spears, or even to her husband about what she believes is indigestion and/or "women’s trouble." Her relationship with food is both the cause and solution to her health problems, as she often eats buttered bread to help her feel better. She also feels that her "inability to feel love has poisoned her" as she does not feel pleasure when her husband makes love to her (7); she copes with food.