A 30-year-old man named Pat is doing push-ups at “the bad place” (3) when his mother arrives. She asks if he wants to come home with her. Pat thinks about Nikki; through exercise, he is trying to build a new body that she will like. He agrees to come home with his mother “just until apart time is over” (4). Dr. Timbers tells Pat good-bye and tells him to enjoy his life. While driving away, Pat’s mother tells him that Dr. Timbers did not want to release him. 

When they reach their hometown of Collingwood, Pat starts “to feel anxious, breathing heavily like [he] sometimes do[es]” (6). At home, Pat’s mother has created a home gym for him in the basement, with dumbbells, a bench press, and an abdominal exercise machine. Pat begins a workout, alternating between exercise and writing in his journal, “so that Nikki will be able to read about [his] life and know exactly what [he’s] been up to since apart time began” (7). 

Upstairs, Pat sees that some removed the pictures of him and Nikki from the wall over the mantel where they once hung. His mother claims robbers broken in and stole them weeks earlier. Pat does not speak with his father during his first week at home.