Dr. Welby finds that even a school that does brilliant work with retarded children will not accept 6-year old Paulie Stewart, since there is no basis for communication and response. his efforts to achieve a breakthrough result in hostile actions by Paulie, and a growing estrangement between the boy's parents, Janice and Bob Stewart.

Michael Ambrose, a diabetic, tries to end his life to get even with his father. Michael resents his father, best-selling novelist John Ambrose, blaming him for the unhappiness his mother suffered before her death, and taunts him by threatening to give up taking her insulin shots. When John Ambrose goes back East for a television appearance, Michael carries out his threat.

When the patrician Senora Carlotta, mother of Dr. Welby's nurse Consuelo Lopez, is told by the doctor that her life-or-death decision will also involve others, she decides immediately what course she must take. Her philosophy affects Mrs. Faris, the cynical women whose room she shares and who rejects the present while dreading the future.