At Anthony’s family Christmas party, his mother turns her nose up at the punch that Anthony’s wife, Marie, made. When his father, Frank, briefly leaves the lounge room to get a beer instead, Anthony feels suffocated around his mother and his wife. He can sense their hostile glances (which he calls “Evil Rays”) as they try to make him feel guilty, even though he bought everything in this room—including the new lounge suite they’re sitting on.
When Anthony suggests that they open Christmas presents, his mother reminds him that his sister Margaret, her husband Ian, and their children Tom and Hannah aren’t there yet. Anthony bitterly thinks that his niece and nephew will be used to deflect today’s Evil Rays; Marie hadn’t wanted to invite the children, but Anthony insisted. Presently, he decides to help Marie with the food—but his mother refuses to eat the appetizers he serves her, and his father only eats one to be polite.
Anthony and his mother make small talk about how crowded the stores are at Christmastime. Anthony remembers that when he went to the market the night before, the person ahead of him was buying simple prepackaged food; he’d felt the urge to follow them out and go home with them. Anthony’s mother then tells him about the expensive walkie-talkie set she got Tom this year, and Anthony assures her that Tom will love it. But really, he knows that his niece and nephew will be more excited about the Nintendo Wii console he got them.
Anthony escapes his mother by going to help Marie in the kitchen. As she prepares the Christmas ham, she orders Anthony to pit cherries for lunch. Anthony tells her that he’ll pit them in the lounge room to annoy his mother, which makes Marie flash a genuine smile that Anthony misses. Over time, she’s trained herself to show a different smile, one that’s close-lipped and artificially calm. Anthony thinks back to last week, when he and Marie went to their first fertility specialist appointment. Marie had stubbornly told the doctor that she was doing everything right, and that they were ready for “conception enhancement.”
As Anthony pits cherries in the lounge room, he remembers eating cherries with Margaret as children and using the pits to play a rhyming game about who they’d marry. Anthony would add more pits to Margaret’s pile so that she’d end up with “poor man” at the end of the rhyme, and Anthony thinks that this came true—Margaret and Ian are struggling financially. Anthony, who has an expensive new house, feels guilty about this. Then, he begins to think about how the cherry pits look like the ball of wax that a doctor once extracted from his ear after a bad cold. He’d been surprised at how something like that had accumulated in his body, and at how clearly he could hear after it was removed.
Anthony’s mother interrupts his thoughts when she makes an underhanded comment about how Marie and Anthony are hard to shop for because they already have so much. This makes Anthony remember that Marie used to call him “Ant” before they bought this house, and how panicked and sick he’d felt when he signed the mortgage. Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and Anthony rushes to greet Margaret, Ian, and the kids.
After lunch, Anthony looks at his family through his digital camera’s viewfinder and notices that Marie looks beautiful from one angle but miserable from another. Similarly, Margaret looks sad and chubby from one angle but happy and warm from another. Hannah and Tom, meanwhile, have on trained, polite smiles as they pose for the photo. After snapping the picture, Anthony takes Tom aside and asks him to play with the present Anthony’s mother got him instead of the one Anthony got him. He can tell that Tom is trying hard to behave today, and Anthony has to stop himself from hugging his nephew.
When the family exchanges gifts, Tom enthusiastically thanks Anthony’s mother for the walkie-talkies, but she just lectures Tom about being careful with the expensive toys. Meanwhile, Anthony looks over at Marie and wonders if she loves him. He eagerly volunteers to join Tom outside to test the walkie-talkies, though he knows his mother will criticize him in his absence. From opposite sides of the yard, Anthony and Tom begin to play a spy game over the walkie-talkies. But suddenly, Anthony thinks he hears Marie’s voice instead of Tom’s coming through the walkie-talkie: he hears her accuse him of not wanting to have a baby, which leaves him speechless.
As the walkie-talkie begins emitting static, Anthony looks at Marie through the kitchen window and feels something shift inside him. The static clears, and he suddenly realizes that he can never have a baby with Marie. Just then, Tom’s voice comes clearly to ask if Anthony is there, before more static overtakes the line. All Anthony can manage to say is “Man down. Mayday,” and he knows Tom will come looking for him in a few moments. But instead of composing himself, Anthony reaches over to a potted succulent on the porch and pricks his finger with one of its spines, watching a blood droplet form as “proof that such things are real.”
