When Biddy Wells's elderly mother is suddenly struck down with a mysterious illness, Biddy moves her into the spare bedroom, little knowing how long the period of convalescence will last. Through the months that follow, the two women have to re-inhabit the close domestic proximity that they'd abandoned decades before and learn how to co-exist within a tangled web of emotional need, resentment, and dependence. Eventually, Biddy manages to find a supported flat that's ideal for her mother. She settles quickly and, abandoning her morbidly stoic outlook on life, falls passionately, obsessively in love with another resident. Biddy can only watch from the sideline as her mother throws herself into the infatuation, giving more of herself to this virtual stranger than she ever had to Biddy. Told with humour, wry insight, and refreshing honesty, Scrabble in the Afternoon examines the complicated, frustrating, and ultimately rewarding story of how a daughter can come to terms with caring wholeheartedly for a mother whose own lack of maternal instinct and care had marked her through childhood.