One windy day, Emma is told she has to move out of her house by her son Sam and her daughter-in-law, Ardis. The government is building a highway, and her house is in the middle of it. As compensation, Emma is given some money to move to a new place on the outskirts of town, a near-abandoned farmhouse that comes with overgrown trees and a dirty pond. She is lonely at first, and she misses her neighbors throughout the winter, but the spring brings Sam and Ardis, who bring Emma a great-grandson—Ethan—whose existence she never knew about. Unable to care for him in addition to their own three children, Sam and Ardis leave Ethan with Emma and leave. Emma tries her best to care for Ethan, but he never opens his heart to her. Even as months go by, he does not say a single word to her. Meanwhile, Emma visits her old house now reduced to rubble with him, buys him a dog, cleans up her new house, and generally tries her best to get him to love her. Still, all Ethan does is stare at her with an expressionless face. She starts to doubt that he can speak at all, so he calls Sam to ask, but he tells her that he’s just too young to know how to talk. Then, one day, on a trip to the grocery store, Emma overhears Ethan talking very politely to a stranger, which breaks her heart. In a fit of desperation, she begs Ethan to love her because she has no one left but him. He strokes her hair in response: the most intimacy the two have achieved in all their time of living together.