Lena St. Clair invites her mother to stay with her and her husband Harold’s house. Her mother Ying-ying St. Clair sees the faults and instability in her daughter’s marriage no matter how hard Lena tries to hide them. Lena has her mom stay in the guest bedroom at their house. Next to the bed is a shaky table that looks as if it would collapse at any moment and on top of this unstable table is a fragile vase. Lena keeps the table because Harold made it in his student days and insists it stay there. Later that night the table breaks and the vase falls to the ground crashing. Lena asks what has happened and her mother responds saying the table had fallen and Lena says she knew it would happen. Ying-ying asks, “then why did you not try to stop it?”
