In the film, director Ross McElwee gets married, finally putting an end to his family's worrying; his grandmother dies; his wife Marilyn has a miscarriage; and his father, a medical doctor, dies suddenly within a week of McElwee's wife's miscarriage.
Charleen then lived there alone, but on returning home from a trip she finds that her husband has set fire to the house and died downstairs at the grand piano in an arson/suicide.
Charleen has her husband's cremated remains in a bag inside a box and tries to get rid of them but can't bring herself to do it.
Ross's brother takes a slide of the tumor for his files; it has spread across much of her chest and is both multifaceted and multicolored.
The pregnancy comes to term and Ross and Marilyn go with their baby son to visit Charleen, who criticizes them for bringing children into such a hostile and unpredictable world but speaks to the passion that drives life and procreation.