While at the bar with longest friend, middle sister is approached by “tablets girl”—a mentally disturbed young woman who is always trying to slip poison into people’s drinks. She accuses middle sister of conspiring with milkman to kill tablets girl during a prior existence in the 17th century. Unbeknownst to middle sister, tablets girl also doses her drink; middle sister doesn’t even realize that she’s been poisoned when she wakes up vomiting hours later, ascribing her sickness to stress.

Middle sister’s groans wake up her younger sisters and mother, who assumes she’s either pregnant or has been poisoned by milkman’s jealous wife. Like many women in the community, ma is an amateur physician, and she begins preparing a mixture to purge the poison. Several neighbors arrive to assist, remarking that middle sister’s symptoms are similar to those of tablets girl’s “shiny” sister, whom tablets girl recently poisoned. Nevertheless, everyone assumes middle sister’s sickness must have something to do with milkman, and they caution ma against taking her daughter to the hospital: the community views hospitals with suspicion even under the best of circumstances, and believes that in this case, the police might try to use middle sister’s association with milkman to flip her.