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.

A five-year-old girl and her mother go into hiding with some less-than-savory friends at an upstate New York cabin. While there, the girl sees the ghosts of a past tragedy and, for the first time, confronts the insecurity and inexplicability of her own life.

After a ten-year-old boy accidentally kills his friend in 1970s Massachusetts, his father's decision to frame an innocent man unleashes a storm he could never have expected. But why did he lie, and whose fault is it?

After their father's accidental murder of a white man is revealed, two young Black girls scramble to save their father from a lifetime of prison.

A four-year-old black boy vaguely recalls a mixture of occurrences that puzzled him, including a sentenced hanging in his town of a man who allegedly murdered his wife.

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

A paranoid old woman makes a disturbing discovery that intensifies her fears about being the victim of a crime.

A home invasion brings out the worst in a young boy.

After a young girl dies trying to escape from her kidnapper, the witnesses who saw the girl in a Waffle House minutes before her death reckon with their inaction.

A middle-aged man tells his son the story of how he once killed a man while driving when he was younger, and another about how his first wife—his wife before son's mother that the son knew nothing about—suddenly passed away.