At dental school. Dave pursued Dana, the amazing and only woman in his class. Now married, they share a high quality private practice and raise their three little girls: Lizzie, Stephanie, and Leah. The ordinary chaos in the office and home of a professional couple is constant, though not insurmountable, and they enjoy the dental dramas of their patients, the childrens’ distinctive personalities, and the challenges of parenting. For example, two year-old Leah suddenly decides Dave is the centre of her universe, she shrieks when her previous favorite, Dana, comes near. The parents handle it together calmly without jealousy.

But Dave notices his beautiful, moody wife is drifting away; more precisely, he thinks she is having an affair. To keep this fear out of the realm of reality and confrontation, he scrupulously directs all talk toward work and kids, until his life is bent around avoiding any serious conversation with her at all. The children are anxious. He grieves for the losses of little things in their shared lives.

But when the family is felled by flu, all other problems recede. In rapid succession, children and parents collapse with fever, chills, and misery. Dave is up several nights with Leah, then he is sick himself just as Stephanie and Dana fall even more seriously ill. Drunk with fatigue and terrified that Stephanie might die, he takes her to hospital. They all recover, and the world seems harmonious. Dave begins to think he had imagined his wife’s distraction until he is jolted back to his worry when Dana vanishes.