On September 15, 1981, a 12-year-old boy named Jack Sawyer looks at the Atlantic Ocean from the shore. Three months prior, he and his mother, Lily Sawyer, left Los Angeles for Arcadia Beach in New Hampshire. Arcadia Beach is a resort that is mostly deserted. Jack walks the boardwalk, looks at the amusements, and at the Alhambra Inn, where he and his mother are staying.

Something is wrong with his mother. She is sick, and Jack doesn’t know how to help. He remembers that his uncle Tommy is dead, and Jack doesn’t have anyone to turn to. He knows that his mother is hiding from his uncle Morgan in the Alhambra. The phones never ring, and he doesn’t think anyone knows where they are.

When they arrived, Lily told him that she had been happy here for three weeks, which is why she brought Jack here; it is a good place in her memory. In 1968, Lily—a B movie actress going by the name of Lily Cavanaugh—appeared in a movie called Blaze, which garnered her an Oscar nomination. Her husband, Phil, brought her to the Alhambra to celebrate. She didn’t win, and there were no other prestigious parts to come.