At 26, Kenna returns home after spending five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. She was driving intoxicated in an accident that killed her boyfriend, Scotty. On her way back into town in a cab, she has the driver go out to the spot where the accident occurred. There she finds a small wooden wayside cross, which she believes Scotty’s parents have placed there. She pulls up the cross because she believes Scotty would have hated it.

She heads into town and finds the low-income apartment housing, the only place she can afford. She has returned for one purpose: to reunite with her four-year-old daughter, Diem. She did not know until after the accident that she was pregnant, and she signed over parental rights to Scotty’s parents. She is unsure how to proceed, but she is determined to meet the daughter she only glimpsed in the prison delivery room. Her apartment is depressing, barely furnished and tiny. In a gesture of friendship, the landlady, Ruth, gifts Kenna with a kitten to keep her company despite Kenna’s protestations she is not interested in a pet.