Julie, a thirty-something caterer, meets her husband Simon at a cafe to tell him the good news that she is pregnant, but his response is to choke on a mushroom and collapse. In the ambulance on the way to hospital Simon revives, just in time for the ambulance to swerve, lose control and smash into a parked car at a busy intersection.

At the hospital, a doctor, William is ill-equipped to tell Julie that Simon died in the crash. Julie, in shock, goes home, collects all Simon's possessions and burns them in the bath. Then she returns to the café, demanding to know how one of their mushrooms can kill a man? The waitress is sympathetic and comments that maybe accidents happen for a reason. Julie suggests that maybe Simon lives on in the baby.

We are introduced to Matthew, a good Samoan boy, and our narrator. Matthew runs across the road at a busy intersection - just in time to be hit by the out of control ambulance carrying Simon and Julie. Matthew is killed.