A little girl acts out on purpose for the first time when she hacks her family's knives after her father told her not to.

A woman on a grand jury hears the case of an older woman who was brutally raped by one of her former students. She attempts to understand the different ways the story disturbs her.

One night while visiting his mother, a man contends with the nature of faith and family.

A mother's mistakes haunt her. When a man brutalizes her, she accepts his punches as punishment for her sins.

A woman struggles with shaky faith and emotional isolation from her son, which intensify when she goes to see him in prison. After one particularly difficult visit, she faces her fears with her brother’s help.

On a visit to his old family farm in the Great Plains, a man recalls his tumultuous relationship with his now-deceased brother. In the process, he must reckon with the continued influence of familial trauma and confront his own ambiguous role in his brother's death.

A couple in grad school who witness a domestic dispute have opposing views on whether to intervene, which leads to tumultuous arguments in their own relationship as well.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

After a boy finds a dime on the ground, he buys a load of bread — only to have it stolen by his abusive uncle. The boy must decides if he wants to stand up against his uncle, or accept yet another loss.

When a worker at a grocery store witnesses a man's arm get severed while attempting to grab a watermelon, it reminds him of an old story during slavery where a watermelon was the symbol of a blessing.