The Magician's Assistant

Dot finally asks Sabine about her marriage to Parsifal because she knows that her son was gay. Sabine explains that she was in love with Parsifal and married him even though they couldn’t be together sexually. When Sabine asks Dot why Parsifal would lie about her, Dot gives Sabine the backstory. Dot grew up in a conservative Nebraskan town and was therefore raised to adopt strong anti-gay biases. She noticed that Guy was different when he was just a toddler, and as he grew older, she tried to repress his sexual orientation, sending him away to a reformatory facility when he was a teenager. When he was released at age 18, he left home forever.

Dot feels immense guilt for pushing Parsifal away. She wants to know about his happy adulthood and successful life, so she asks Sabine to show her all of Parsifal’s favorite spots. Later, Sabine has a dream about Phan in which he shows her around Vietnam. He tells her that he left Vietnam as a teenager to go to university in France and never returned. Sabine wants to know if Parsifal will appear in her dream, but Phan explains that Parsifal is embarrassed about lying to Sabine and leaving her with the unresolved conflict of his family.