Rosy and her son, Tom, arrive at their new house at dawn. She carries her sleeping son inside from the backseat of the car to a mattress in the smaller of the house’s two bedrooms. Rosy goes into the other bedroom and falls asleep to prepare for the next day of keeping the two of them safe. 

She is awoken by the sound of her son throwing a tantrum. She makes him banana sandwiches for breakfast and promises to take him into town that day to get a new toy. She gives him a bath and hugs him tight before letting him go and asking him to stay close. Rosy watches him skip down the garden path and she showers in cold water and finds nothing to eat for herself. 

In the garden, Rosy loses sight of Tom. She finds him amidst a flock of sheep, kneeling over a prostrate ewe. Rosy slaps the sheep and yells at Tom for getting them both dirty again. But, when Tom runs away, Rosy can’t help but laugh and they chase each other around the garden gleefully. 

The two go to the town center and Rosy asks Tom if he could see it as a home. He asks his mother if he can go to school and she reminds him that what happened at the nursery can’t happen again. When he protests, she buys him a toy and a chocolate bar to calm him down. They go next to the laundromat where a woman with a baby sits beside them. Tom peers into the baby carriage and his breathing intensifies. Rosy sends him to the other side of the room to play with his toys alone. 

When the laundry cycle concludes, Rosy and Tom head out and the mother beside them tells Rosy she hopes her child grows up to be half as good as Tom. On their way back to the flat, they stop by a phone booth and Rosy calls her brother Ross, who she thanks for the house and the extra money he had sent them. When Ross hangs up before talking to Tom, Tom grows sad and says his uncle is still angry with him for what happened. Tom asks his mother how his dad will find them and Rosy replies that if he wanted to find them he would. 

As her son sleeps, Rosy drinks beer and looks through old photographs from Tom’s infancy. A few days later, a postman brings a parcel to the door with Tom’s name on it that carries Christmas presents for the two of them from Ross. Tom watches cartoons while Rosy falls asleep. She wakes up moments later to Tom pressing his nose hard on her own and he reminds her that she’s not allowed to fall asleep. She asks him to take one of his tablets so she can go to sleep and he promises to if he can watch his cartoons later. Rosy starts to sweat and tremble as she pours Tom a glass of milk and hands him his tablet. While she usually stays by his side for a couple hours when he takes the tablets to monitor her breathing, Rosy is exhausted and she tucks him in and then locks herself in her bedroom. She sleeps for over twelve hours and dreams that Tom has her in a chokehold and she slams him on the floor, breaking his arm. 

When she wakes up, she finds her son in his bedroom fast asleep. She considers getting in her car and leaving him forever, but only momentarily, and she returns to his side, waking him up. She bathes him and then tells him to go drink water while she cleans up his wet bed sheets. When she goes downstairs she finds her son on the couch staring at a blank TV screen with saliva dripping from his mouth. She joins him and wonders how many tablets it would take for him to sleep two or even three days in a row.  

Tom keeps asking to go to school and why his uncle won’t speak to him when he calls, but Rosy has no answer. Rosy decides to write Ross a letter asking to spend Christmas together and Tom agrees to draw an accompanying picture. He draws a picture of a dog and when Rosy asks him if he thinks it’s funny after what he did to Ross’ dog Tom hits her and yells that it’s a tiger, not a dog. Rosy decides she will not send the letter after all and she restrains herself from screaming at him as he cusses her out. 

She watches as she tries to control his anger and grows nervous that he will eventually be able to harness it to hurt people even more than he already has. He tells her that when she’s older she won’t be able to control him anymore and Rosy goes and gets drunk. She resolves to put him to sleep for good and goes into the room where she lies and says they are going to visit Ross after all. She tells him his uncle wants him to take eleven tablets. As he takes each one consecutively, she contemplates stopping him and making him throw up, but she doesn’t give in. 

She tucks him into bed and his words slur as he imagines visiting the park with Ross when they visit. Rosy leaves his door wide open and goes to bed.