Seven-year-old Frankie has a unique friend. Jennifer, the daughter of the neighbor who watches him during the day, is a year older but much smaller -- she has progeria, a genetic disease that causes premature aging. They play fantastic games with each other all the time, until one day, Frankie's father doesn't send him to Jennifer's house. He's lost his job at NASA. He looks for work, but nothing comes up, so his attention turns toward his son, the only one of the four children who sticks around at home. Frankie spends the next few weeks at Jennifer's house -- she and her mother are kind and play fantastical games with him. But one day, Frankie's father stops their visits. They will be a team, he says, and he conscripts Frankie to help him with his unemployment-driven obsession: revitalizing their lawn by covering it in stolen sand. They have some fun together, but Frankie pines for his visits to Jennifer's house. He finds no sympathy from his siblings, who either ignore him or attack him, or his mother, who ignores him and attacks his father. When the grass begins to die, Frankie's father only becomes more obsessed. He and Frankie's mother fight almost constantly. One day, Frankie escapes to Jennifer's house, where he has fun playing make-believe with his friend and eats the lunch her mother prepares. Trouble ensues when his father finds him there. He yells at Frankie and then Jennifer, even grabbing her frail arm, and her mother. When he yanks Frankie into the car and drives him home, the situation is clear. He has lost himself, and he has lost Frankie, too.