A man named Sean and his wife go to dinner and have fun for the first time in a while. When they get home, they start talking about their daughter Heather, who did not want to come home for spring break. Katie, the wife, is in despair about it, and views Sean's acceptance as indifference. When Sean later discovers he is alone in bed, he goes to the bathroom to find her. She is submerged underwater, with an empty pill bottle beside her and a slice in her forearm. He sees a sign of movement in the blood, but leaves the bathroom. He does not save her because he is tired of trying to nurse her back to health and happiness after her suicide attempts, and he does not want to bring her back to a world where she does not want to be.
The next morning, Sean is in the kitchen, when Katie comes downstairs. Her nightgown is still wet, and the cut on her forearm is a bloodless flab of skin. Katie does not remember what happened to her. Sean brings her upstairs to change her into dry clothes, and he is aroused by the newness of her body. Katie feels strange and like she does not belong. Eventually she wants to go outside, but the light burns her eyes. Katie thinks that she should go somewhere else, but Sean wants her to stay. She wants to sleep in the cellar away from the light. Sean puts a mattress downstairs, and they have sex, but after a bit she just lies still beneath him. In the middle of the night, Katie wakes up and does not remember who Sean is, except that he is the man who left her in the water. 
When Sean falls back asleep, Katie goes outside. She finds a dead robin which she finds beautiful and holds it even though ants crawl up her arm. She eventually ends up at a cemetery, and she starts digging, feeling relaxed and soothed, but she then hears Sean calling to her. Sean takes her home, back to the cellar, where he locks her so she cannot wander. She nails the dead robin to a beam downstairs. Katie stops getting up or doing anything. She lets Sean bathe her, but gets angry at his sexual advances, so he stops but is hurt by the rejection. Sean tries to woo her by bringing her more dead animals, and even poisons their neighbor's cat to bring to her. 
Katie starts digging behind some boxes in the cellar so Sean cannot see. She does not remember who Sean is, but she is disgusted by him and his wet coughs and breathing. Heather, their daughter, comes home for the weekend at Sean's insistence, because he says her mother needs her. Heather asks if Katie tried to kill herself again, and is furious when Sean says yes, saying she is always the one who has to help her mother after her attempts. Sean yells at her, saying he has to deal with it too. He leads Heather down to the cellar, and she reluctantly follows. Katie is now just a hunched mound of flesh on bone, and all she does is dig at the earth. Heather begs Sean to come back upstairs, but he yells at her and says to come with him to Katie. Sean pulls Katie away from the grave she is making and cradles her, and she can feel the new countryside that lays beyond the earth. Her arms try to dig at the air even while Sean holds her.