Hannah and John are a young couple in Maine. They have an infant son named Clint. Hannah comes from a working-class background. After high school, her abusive mother forced her to get a job at a local gas station. Conversely, John and his family are well-off. The two met at Hannah’s job, and they got married about a year later. Hannah longs to do something for herself, but she passes her days in their yellow-painted home as merely the Wife or the Mother. John, an insurance salesman, has no idea what it’s like to be at home with the wordless Clint all day. Flashes of violence fill Hannah's head: falling down the stairs and cracking her skull on the floor (on accident); jamming a kitchen knife into her abdomen or the baby’s (on purpose). John knows something’s wrong, but he doesn’t know what else to do besides listen to her nervous ramblings and tell her he loves her at night. One day, Hannah takes Clint to the general store run by Jana, John’s sister. While wandering the aisles she sees a pale, mousy woman. Too late, Hannah realizes she’s looking in a mirror. She purchases a few items and declines Jana’s offer to watch Clint. When she gets home with the baby, it begins to rain. She takes him outside in the downpour, where they both begin crying. Hannah passes an open field. She lays the child on a boulder and goes home to sleep. She hears his cries on the wind, but she doesn’t want to hurt him. She just wishes he was away for a while. When she awakens hours later, she panics and runs back to the field. Thankfully, Clint is alive. Just as she hugs him to her chest, John’s car pulls up. Hannah fears that he will wrench the child away and scold her for her carelessness. But he approaches with love in his eyes, and he wraps his arms around both of them.