For the first time, we meet with the protagonists of the novel, Alina and Louis Davermel, during their divorce proceedings. They lived together for twenty years, gave birth to four children, but at forty-four, Louis decided to start a new life with the young Odile, whom he had known for five years, and to leave his old, petty, grumpy and near-minded wife, who tormented him with constant tantrums and scandals.

Until the court’s final decision, Alina remains with the children to live in the house purchased by Louis, and their father is allowed to communicate with them on the second and fourth Sunday of each month, and even during the holidays: he has at his disposal exactly half of the holidays. Children in a family of different ages and with different characters. Leon, the eldest son, is seventeen years old. This is a rather secretive, calm young man who does not benefit from the absence of his father in the house, since now he feels himself the master here. Agatha, a fifteen-year-old girl, took the side of her mother in a dispute between father and mother and severely condemned the act of her father. Thirteen-year-old Rosa, apparently a copy of her mother, adores her father and always takes his side. Guy at the beginning of the divorce proceedings is too small to have his own view of what is happening: he is only nine. When Louis takes the children with him, Alina is terribly jealous and, upon their return, tears off her anger at them.

The events of the novel cover a seven-year period, and each significant turn in the development of the plot with rigorous accuracy is highlighted by the narrator reporting his specific date. In April 1966, six months after the start of the divorce proceedings, Louis informed Odile's relatives that in July she would become his wife. This is what happens. In early August, Louis takes his children to La Baule, the foothill region, where Odile was born to introduce the children to his new wife. Odile, a twenty-year-old slender girl with long black hair and blond eyes, when meeting, shows maximum tact and patience. Soon, children get used to the environment and feel quite comfortable. Only Agatha, an ally of the mother, takes every occasion to annoy her father and his new wife.

Alina, meanwhile, at the initiative of her friend and also the single mother of Emma, ​​is trying to attend a club of divorced and abandoned women. There, she met with Maitre Grand, a woman lawyer, whom she later replaced the maestro Lera, who didn’t please her with her softness.

A year after Louis’s marriage, his parents Louise and Fernand Davermel come to visit him and find themselves amazed at the view of the house rented by the newlyweds a year ago on the outskirts of Paris. Everything in it is now clean, renovated, comfortable. They pay tribute to the economic talents of the new daughter-in-law, in relation to whom at first they were not very friendly. When they learn that this house is not only renovated, but already bought by a young couple, and Louis, who works in a design company, with the support of Odile, returned to his long-standing passion for painting, then with humility and joy they acknowledge that their son made excellent it’s not for nothing that he decided to leave the grumpy wife, who oppressed him with her tediousness and disbelief in his ability.

The former house where the Davermel family lived had to be sold, and Alina and her children now live in a four-room apartment, so the girls live together in the same room, and Guy, whom Leon does not let into his room, is forced to sleep on the sofa in the living room, which he can only have it when everyone else deigns to go to rest. Guy learns worse and worse, he is even left in the second year. Teachers who understand that it’s hard for a boy to break apart between two families: his father’s family, where he is loved and where he has his own room, and his mother’s house, which in rude terms sets him up against his father and where the atmosphere leaves much to be desired, insist so that Alina takes Guy to a consultation at the Center for mentally disabled children.

The family of Louis has to replenish: Odile is expecting a baby. Alina, on the other hand, annoys her ex-husband with endless court calls, appeals, cassations, and asking for extra interest on the alimony that Louis meticulously pays to her and the children. She was tired of living alone: ​​if her hubby married a second time, then why not marry her. Ginette, Alina’s sister, arranges a meeting with a widower, a retired military man, at her home. The acquaintance, however, has no continuation, because Alina, no matter how difficult it is, is not going to connect her life with anyone. She warms the idea that if she was neglected, then she can afford the same thing.

Odile is born a boy who is called Felix. Louis immediately reports this to Alina and asks her to pass this news on to the children and that they could see her brother, but she purposely hides this news. When Rosa and Guy learn about the mother’s act, they become furious: in addition to endless attacks on her father, she also forbids them to see her brother. Younger children still took every opportunity to call on their father in Nozhan, even for five minutes, and now they even want to move to him. Rosa and Guy decide to take extreme measures to secure the transfer of custody of their father: they run away from home and, sitting at the train station, write letters of complaint to all courts with a request to consider their case.

Alina, worried about the absence of children, sends Leon and Agatha, who she always uses as a spy in her father’s house, to find out if the children have escaped to him. After the next trial, younger children are allowed to move to their father. Elders, too, are increasingly moving away from their mother. Leon is already quite an adult, he has a girlfriend, and Agatha is increasingly seen on a motorcycle behind some tough guy. Alina looks at her daughter’s company through her fingers: if only she would not be seriously carried away by one. But after talking with the young guys, Agatha concludes that she is more interested in adult men, and falls in love with Edmond, the owner of a leather goods store. Edmond is married, but his wife is in a madhouse. Agatha does not want to repeat the mistakes of her mother and wants to be able to break her connection at any time, without a divorce. However, she now better understands the motives and behavior of her father.

Alina, by all possible means, is trying to lure the younger children back, but she does not succeed. Children have matured and can already perfectly stand up for themselves. True, twice a month and on vacation, they continue to see her.

Three and a half years after the start of the divorce proceedings, Louis and Alina, completely exhausted by the endless fees of lawyers and other requisitions related to legal proceedings, finally decide, by mutual agreement, to complete it. Louis has the opportunity to devote more time and money to his family. Leon once a month will now come to his father for a check. Agatha also gets the same opportunity, but it was on the last day of judgment that she would forever leave her mother's house to settle with Edmond. Agatha feels like a traitor, because she was the closest to her mother, but she can no longer live under the wing of Alina. Agatha does not even leave her her new phone, but only gives her the opportunity to write letters on demand.

Almost a year after these events, in February 1970, the three older children get together in a cafe and from then on decide to meet more often and try to somehow reconcile their parents.

Once Alina, having lost control of her nerves, crashes near her old house in a car, as a result of which she ends up in a hospital with broken legs, arms and ribs. The only thing that brings her comfort is that all the children, even Agatha, whom she had not seen for a long time, come to visit her.

In November 1972, Leon marries Solange, whom he had met before for several years. In a year, he will become, like his paternal grandfather, a pharmacist. To be proud of their children, sometimes to see them and live in an apartment that smells of cats, and even paid for by her ex-husband - that’s all that remains for Alina. Without joy and without purpose, Alina quietly lives her life and slowly, slowly fades away.