The whole story takes place in just one sitting, a pre-dinner drinking bout. The story opens in the kitchen room. The narrator of the story has a friend named Mel McGinnis. The narrator informs us that his cardiologist friend, Mel McGinnis, is talking. The narrator and Mel are sitting around Mel’s kitchen table in Albuquerque, New Mexico, drinking gin with their wives, Laura and Terri. The topic of their discussion is love. According to Mel, love is spiritual and divine, and he says he used to be in the seminary. Terri informs the others that before she started living with Mel, she used to live with a man named Ed, who tried to kill her because he loved her so much. Mel is not ready to accept that Ed loved her very much.Terri does not agree and says that Ed loved her very much. Mel tells the narrator and Laura that Ed had also threatened him and Terri. The narrator holds Laura’s hand and says that he doesn’t really know whether that’s love, while Laura says that you can never know about other people’s situations.