Helen is a 22-year-old woman returning home to her father, mother, and husband in New York. Helen had left her husband, Paul, and her child for another man, but after a short affair with the man, she has chosen to return home and try to amend things. Her father is picking her up from the bus station, where Helen reflects on the men in her life, even the one looking at her now. Helen believes she has an intimate knowledge of men from growing up with her father and thinks most, if not all, men are the same. Once her father arrives, he appears slightly off and quiet, though Helen herself is tired, so she tries to fall asleep on the car ride to her house. Unable to sleep, she asks why her mother didn't come. The father spins lies, saying she didn't want to, then that he didn't want her to, until finally saying that it is because he did not tell her or Paul that Helen was coming home. Helen tries to inquire about why he kept it secret from her mother and husband, but her father starts on about a story of Helen's childhood. He recalls how they have lived at their current farm-home for nearly two decades, and that Helen was just a girl back then. The townfolk and neighbors all thought very little of them, assuming they were hillbilly garbage, but the father worked hard to change this perception. He tells Helen that he did everything for her, not for her other siblings or mother. The father stops the car, claiming that the sunlight is bothering him, and asks her to walk by the river she knew as a child. Helen desperately wants to go home, but her father is ignoring her now, going on about the hardships he endured to build the farm for her. Finally, he asks her why she left Paul, to which she has a weak answer, and then asks why she came back, to which her answer is weaker. Her father raises a knife and slams it into Helen's chest. Once he's cleaned up, he ponders what his next move should be.