In an attempt to impress his emotionally distant father, a boy ridicules his mother, who has loved him unconditionally even in his father's absence. Wracked with guilt, he yearns for her forgiveness - only to find that she does not hold it against him.

A series of vignettes about various sons along a family tree.

An elderly man realizes his troublesome son is the only thing keeping him going.

In an epistolary-like work, a father must choose between a job he loves and his relationship with his son.

When a man's son visits with his new girlfriend, the father worries that she is only interested in the grand house and family money. The father knows he should not intervene in his son's relationship, but the more time he spends with them, the more he dislikes her and the more difficult it gets to stay quiet.

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 bitter divorcee and distant father having an affair with a younger, married woman gets a call that his son has gotten into trouble at boarding school. He travels to the school, where the headmaster says his son, who beat up another student, must transfer. In a series of events that makes him increasingly bitter, he ends up making his son's girlfriend cry in a restaurant.

During a Boy Scout camping trip, a father and son find some bonding time. The father particularly finds solace in the intimacy he feels towards his son during the increased interaction.

A boy rides along in his father's truck, but when he breaks his father's only rule—don't touch anything—by turning on the radio, he hears another trucker threatening the safety of his father.

A disgruntled magazine proofreader returns to his childhood home in attempt to repair his parents' ongoing divorce.