Barry Sutton, a robbery detective with the NYPD, arrives at an office building, responding to a suicide threat. He goes to the 41st floor and quietly walks onto the terrace, where Ann Voss Peters, a woman in business clothes of about forty, sits on the ledge. Barry tries to talk her down, but she warns she has FMS—false memory syndrome. Barry is alarmed. He’s heard of FMS but has never met anyone who has it.

Ann tells Barry that she has memories of an alternate life, where she was married to a man named Joe Behrman and had a nine-year-old son named Sam. The moment she gained these alternate memories she got a headache and a nosebleed. Her memories are vivid, but they appear in black and white. Desperately missing this alternate life, she tracked down Joe Behrman, but he acted like he didn’t know her.

Trying to connect, Barry tells Ann he’s lost a daughter. Ann says that in her other life, Joe’s first wife, Franny, jumped from this same ledge. Ann hoped Joe would try to stop her from recreating the suicide. Barry sees backup officers arriving, but it’s too late. Ann jumps.