Macleod explores how family stories and myths, even though they are fictitious, fold into the present to provide comfort in times of emotional distress.

The narrator retells the family history of an ancestor who saves and nurtures back to health an injured puppy on the brink of death, only to be violently killed by the dog's offspring a few years later.

The narrator is reminded of the story as he and his siblings sit in a Toronto hospital at the bedside of their ill father.

The story transitions to the present, the narrator is remembering the curse as he sits in the hospital room with his adult siblings and his ill father, who is the 6th generation descendant.

It's October and the rain is falling, which is the same month and weather conditions that occurred when the man saved the big grey dog's life as a puppy.