Frank Slovak, a sheep farmer, is severely injured when his tractor flips and pins him underneath. People in town gossip about the accident: they say that Frank’s shy wife, Mrs. Slovak, was the one to find him, and they imagine how terrified they would feel in her shoes. On the day of the accident, Mrs. Slovak pulls up to the house after grocery shopping and sees the tractor overturned out on the farm. Running across the paddocks to the field, she finds Frank crushed beneath the huge machine. After turning the tractor off, Mrs. Slovak tells Frank that she’s going to run and call for help—and she knows Frank is badly hurt when he closes his eyes instead of shouting at her. Frank’s face is pained, and Mrs. Slovak thinks that all the emotions he’s repressed and hidden away from her throughout their 18-year marriage are showing now. It takes Mrs. Slovak 15 minutes to run to the house, call an ambulance, and run back.
Once Frank has been in the hospital for over a week, the townspeople continue to talk. The consensus is that Frank’s life is effectively over—he’s always been a hot-headed, solitary man with a deep desire to work hard. Now, Frank is partially paralyzed and will likely never regain the function he once had, though no one in town is sure of his exact injures. When people begin staring at Mrs. Slovak sympathetically in public and leaving meals and gifts on the Slovaks’ doorstep, Mrs. Slovak becomes bitter. When she had a miscarriage years ago, Frank forced her to keep it a secret, and so she never got this kind of community support. Though Frank was adamant that they should put the loss behind them, Mrs. Slovak now feels haunted and weighed down by her grief.
Soon, Frank comes down with a serious case of pneumonia while he’s recovering from the accident in the hospital. Listening to Frank struggle to breathe, Mrs. Slovak imagines that the illness is similar to drowning; it must be a relief to finally die from it. She’s surprised at how easily she’s able to think of Frank in the past tense—given the prognosis of his injuries, death seems like the best-case scenario to Mrs. Slovak. She begins fantasizing about Frank passing away: telling the doctor to take him off life support, delivering the news to others, the small funeral she’d hold.
But much to Mrs. Slovak’s chagrin, Frank recovers from his pneumonia, and the doctors are even optimistic that he’ll regain some movement. Mrs. Slovak pretends to be relieved, but inside she’s seething with rage as she watches Frank stubbornly relearn to feed himself. When the doctor leaves the room, Frank slaps Mrs. Slovak’s hand out of the way when she goes to wipe his mouth—this is just like Frank, Mrs. Slovak thinks. As Frank continues to progress throughout the following weeks, Mrs. Slovak holds out hope that Frank will be unable to maintain the farm so they’ll have to move to a bungalow in town. With the insurance payout, money from selling the farm, and the caretaker pension Mrs. Slovak hopes to get, she thinks she may even get a new car. Meanwhile, men from around town come to repair Frank’s tractor and take the Slovaks’ lambs to market for them.
One day, Frank exceeds the doctors’ expectations in physical therapy and manages to stand and take a step. Mrs. Slovak continues feigning gratitude for Frank’s improvements, all the while secretly loathing him. That afternoon, when Mrs. Slovak returns home, she finds a local plumber at the house: he’s installed a handicap-accessible shower and sink for the Slovaks, free of charge. He also informs Mrs. Slovak that another farmer is going to come bale up Frank’s hay for him. Again, Mrs. Slovak pretends to be appreciative but seethes with resentment. She knows that this will be her new normal: acting thankful for Frank’s recovery all the while being bossed around and berated by him. Having limited movement will be fine for Frank, Mrs. Slovak thinks, since he’s already unemotional and unmoving toward her.
When Frank comes home from the hospital, he complains about the cost of the remodeled bathroom and handicap ramp, but Mrs. Slovak assures him that the improvements were done free of charge. Frank brushes her off, goes outside, and stares at all the baled hay stacked neatly in the shed. Mrs. Slovak imagines him falling to the ground and lying there, curled up and pathetic, so unlike the in-control Frank she’s used to. When Frank comes inside, Mrs. Slovak helps him take a shower, noticing how decrepit and weak his body looks. Frank is rude and combative as Mrs. Slovak gives him instructions, but when she helps him adjust the water temperature, she can tell he wants to thank her. She thinks that this is the longest conversation they’ve had in months.
After the shower, Mrs. Slovak gives Frank a shave and a haircut. Then, she hands him the telephone and a list of numbers of everyone who helped them while Frank was hospitalized. She tells him to call each of these people and thank them. When Frank refuses, Mrs. Slovak reminds Frank that they’re going to need favors now if they want to keep the farm from going under. She again notices how pathetic Frank looks. Angling the mirror she used for the haircut toward him, Mrs. Slovak orders him to look at himself and then to make the calls.
That night, as Mrs. Slovak and Frank lie next to each other in bed, Mrs. Slovak thinks about the “flexion” exercises a physical therapist performed on Frank in the hospital. The movements, which consisted of repeatedly flexing and unflexing different joints, were meant to encourage muscle memory and prevent atrophy. Suddenly, Mrs. Slovak notices that Frank is silently crying next to her. She’s never seen Frank like this before; to save him the humiliation, she decides to turn away rather than try to help him. Then, Frank confesses to Mrs. Slovak that he’d wanted to die while she ran to call the ambulance—that’s what he could have given her, he says. Mrs. Slovak reflects on the day of the accident and thinks she knows how Frank feels: she knows what it’s like to feel paralyzed, helpless, and wounded. Mrs. Slovak reaches over and gently takes Frank’s hand in hers. She raises their arms and flexes their elbows together, places Frank’s hand over his own heart, and holds it there.
