night Charlie got angry about his wife kissing another man and left her out in the snow. The story indicates that while Honoria's mother might have had some issues with her heart, he also was recovering from alcoholism at a facility and their relationship might have been toxic. Marion blames Charlie for the death of her sister and constantly sees him as a bad person. The story reveals that she has this grudge against him because she hated that her sister and Charlie were out spending so much money on unnecessary partying while she and her husband, Lincoln, were barely getting by. He fears that Marion will put ideas in Honoria's head and turn his daughter against him because of her beliefs about him. Charlie has frequent lunches with his daughter and spends time with her at the Peterses’ to show Marion that he is indeed a good father and to show her that his drunken party days are behind him. His main priority is his daughter, and he wants her to live with him in Prague. Honoria even begins to question him about why she is not living with him. Marion, seeing his efforts, has finally changed her mind and has decided to let Honoria live with her father. The same afternoon, Charlie is at the Peterses’ home with his daughter when suddenly there is someone at the door. On the other side are his old friends Duncan and Lorraine, whom he had asked the bartender Alix about. His friends are very obviously drunk and keep insisting that Charlie go to dinner with them; he turns down their offer twice, and they finally go away unhappy with him. Marion, observing this, after dinner completely withdraws her offer to let Charlie take his daughter back to Prague with him, for she fears he is not completely over his drunken days. Charlie feels devastated and sees his efforts have gone down the drain. He goes back to the Ritz, thinking he would run into Lorraine and Duncan there but instead finding another bartender he knew well from his partying days. They have a short conversation, and Charlie continues to reminisce about his old partying days and all of the bad times in his marriage with Helen. He is consumed with thoughts about the 1920s, when people were so careless, drunk and on drugs all the time. After some time, he calls