The narrator is in the midst of relationship troubles: Mel, their deaf girlfriend, refuses to sign to them, only leaving angry post-it notes. Meanwhile, the narrator's parents are on their third re-marriage to each other, and fighting over the renovation of the house they recently bought.
Mel leaves the narrator, and the new house burns down, injuring the narrator's father. The father reveals the house was meant to be for the narrator when their parents passed on. Though Mel returns, there is a silence between them, to the point where the narrator believes they're going deaf too.
