On April 27, 1995, on the Oregon Coast, the elderly narrator rides with her son, Julien, feeling trapped by the seat belt and by how quickly her life has changed. A SOLD sign stands in her yard, and she is leaving the home that has been her sanctuary for decades. Her failing hands and shortness of breath make the transition feel even more humiliating and final.

Julien brings her to Ocean Crest Retirement Community and Nursing Home. The narrator judges the building’s institutional look and fixates on not being placed in the nursing wing “not yet,” insisting on her independence even as her body betrays her. Inside her new apartment, she sees how thoroughly Julien has prepared: familiar furniture, favorite films, and, in the bedroom, a row of prescription bottles and her trunk positioned exactly as she requested.

Julien offers one last chance to change her mind and come home with him, but the narrator refuses, believing his busy life cannot accommodate constant care. Privately, she admits her deeper motive: she does not want Julien or his daughters to watch her cancer reduce her “by degrees,” and she wants their memory of her to remain intact.

As they sit with wine, Julien produces a stack of mail and bills he has handled. While sorting through the junk letters, the narrator finds a marked envelope from Paris. Julien opens it and discovers a French invitation mentioning the Croix de Guerre, assuming it relates to his late father and the war.

The invitation is for a passeurs’ reunion in Paris, and it jolts the narrator into fear and dread. She knows attending would force her to relive what she calls “the terrible things” she did, the secret she kept, and the man she killed—and another man she believes she should have killed. When Julien asks what a passeur is, she answers weakly that it was someone who helped people during the war.