In the first part, the narrative voice, a woman, remembers her nanny, Felisa, embroidering on the balcony of their home. One of her earliest memories is that of her mother tearing up letters and photographs of her wedding. Her father is a serene, but absent figure. The rest of the family is an uncle and aunt, and Ramón, who died before the memory of her mother destroying photographs. The woman is studying marine biology at university in Mexico, having left home when asked to by her mother. She has now returned to the city where she grew up in order to visit her mother, who is sick. She is met at the airport by her aunt, Natalia. She finds her aunt’s presence soothing. Hers is the voice that has accompanied her on her travels. Her mother was a successful businesswoman, transforming the family’s ironmonger’s shop into a chain of stores selling household appliances, but two years earlier she took the decision to shut herself in her bedroom, having fallen into a depression caused by the lack of a mission in her life and the death of Ramón, the woman’s brother.
The woman’s mother and uncle, Cándido, were born with fixed destinies. Cándido would inherit the family’s ironmonger’s shop and carry on the family business. The woman’s mother would look after her parents in their old age, but the parents died in a fire and Cándido was forced to devote his youth to resurrecting the family business literally from the ashes, while the woman’s mother no longer had any parents to devote her time to.
The woman returns to the family home in the company of her aunt, Natalia. She is met by the faithful janitor, Matías, who still remembers when a papier-mâché whale was delivered to the house and the day the woman was born. Her old nanny, Felisa, is overjoyed to see her. The woman remembers the time Felisa put her to bed for an afternoon sleep and the woman, a small girl at the time, gazed at the motes of dust floating in the air. Felisa is overjoyed to see her, but all the woman manages is a faint smile. While waiting to see her mother, the woman waits in the library of the house and discovers a telephone number she knew would be in one of the books, which she promises herself she will ring while she is in the city.
The woman remembers taking her leave of Ángela in La Paz. Ángela is a university teacher from California studying jellyfish in Mexico. The problem is, as soon as the woman leaves a place, she feels how it recedes and is replaced by her new destination. So the city where she grew up has already replaced Ángela in her feelings. The only person who is not replaced in her feelings is Ramón.
The woman re-encounters her mother after an absence of five years. Her mother’s bedroom is full of photos of Ramón, a few of her and none of her father. Her mother assures her that she never really hated her and her uncle, Cándido, greets the woman by lifting her in the air. In her old bedroom, the woman rediscovers the papier-mâché whale she and some friends from school made for carnival. The woman leaves the house and discovers Matías and Felisa in the entrance, trying to conceal their passion for each other. Upstairs, Felisa is asked by the woman’s mother why the woman has been crying all day and how long it is since Ramón died. The woman visits the three shops the family has in the city (they have fifty shops in all, in forty cities) and, while there, her aunt, Natalia, gives her the good news that she will inherit the family business and the bad news that the family wants her to return at once to assume the reins or she runs the risk of being disinherited.
The woman studies a box with a design of a cherry tree and a woman dressed in a kimono holding a basket of cherries. This box was her father’s final offering to her mother when he returned from sea for a few days and made her mother pregnant because she wanted a daughter to look after Ramón when she was gone. The woman thinks she also was born with a fixed destiny. Her aunt, Natalia, tries to apologize for forcing the woman to abandon her studies and come back to look after the family business, but this is how things are, and the woman thinks her destiny is still Ramón, even though her brother has been dead for fifteen years.
The woman is shocked to discover that Felisa has moved into Ramón’s old bedroom. She used to live in the attic, where she would entertain clients who wanted her embroidery and show them her urban garden. The woman is almost sure her mother doesn’t know about this profanation of a sacred space, or that her father supposedly sent a Christmas card from Osaka, Japan, with the words ‘Thinking of you. Congratulations’. The woman remembers how, when she was twelve, she invaded her mother’s privacy and tried on the French knickers and camisole that had been a present from her father. She felt the same sexual excitement they must have felt and learned how to calm it.
The woman remembers her first proper boyfriend, Virxilio, and how he liked to talk and to kiss in the same measure. In the end, the woman grew fed up of him and hid whenever he came to call on her. The woman realizes she has only ever been happy, truly happy, away from home. At home, she has felt obliged to be happy. Felisa, her aunt and uncle, shower her with attention. The only one who leaves her alone is her mother, who from time to time dictates a letter. It turns out the letter is addressed to the woman’s father, who is still a young man, only sixty-two, in her mother’s words. Her mother’s breathing slows and the woman calls Felisa, who revives her by applying alcohol to her body. The woman suspects the writing on the Christmas card wasn’t her father’s and he may in fact be dead.
