Sawtooth lives at the Out-to-Sea Retirement Community, which is a collection of refurbished boats all docked and turned into living quarters for senior citizens. He gets a notice that he has been assigned a mainlander who is doing community service as part of the “No Elder Person Is an Island Volunteer Program!” (179). He is upset by this and does not want a visit from someone forced to be his companion.

However, this attitude changes when his companion, a girl named Augie, shows up for the first time. She reminds him of someone he once knew—perhaps one of his granddaughters.

She tells him that she requested him specifically because he is an amputee; one of his legs is missing. He quickly grows to rely on his time with her because “he needs the girl to sit and measure time with him, the way the neighbor woman needs her prescription mirror so that she doesn’t forget her own face” (180).

He knows that Augie is coming today, so he tries to make sure everything is perfect. He yells at Miss Markopoulis, his neighbor, for feeding the stingrays because he knows the girl is afraid of them. Although the retirement community is sealed off from the open ocean by a seawall, the rays still drift in along with trash and other flotsam.