Vic Lang’s wife is the narrator of this story, and she has returned to Angelus alone to try to understand him better. Both of his parents have recently died, and the story implies that things are strained between Vic and his wife. When Vic was younger, he was obsessed with a girl with a birthmark (Strawberry Alison), and now his wife is trying to understand the nature of his obsession after she finds him “weeping over an old photograph and poem” (57). Vic loved Alison from the first time he saw her, even though he found her birthmark frightening. The romance was entirely one-sided, and Vic “loved Alison because of the mark, not just despite it” (58). Vic’s wife knows that he was previously infatuated with Melanie from “Abbreviation,” who similarly was disfigured.

Vic’s childhood was difficult: his father Bob was a police officer who started drinking because of his job, and his sister died of meningitis as an infant when Vic was fifteen. A year later, his father disappeared. When Vic’s wife confronts him about never mentioning a sister, he says he had forgotten about her. All of this has made Vic into someone who compensates through charity and kindness, which causes his wife to wonder “if your husband’s love could be another act of kindness, whether there’s something about you he feels you need to be compensated for” (60).