Richard is a twelve-year-old boy living in North Carolina. His father, who nicknames Richard "Buck," calls home each night to remind Richard's mother, who suffers from bipolar disorder and has only recently returned home from the hospital, that he will be back on the weekend. Richard's father travels for his job, where he works as a salesman for a medical supply company, and he is gone all week, causing his wife to miss him and feel alone. Richard's mother is anxious and depressed— she sits at the screen door blowing smoke rings and cuts her face out of pictures of herself— but, when his mother asks him to do so, Richard agrees to not tell his father about his mother's worsening mental state.

On the weekdays Richard reglazes a window for his mother. When Richard's father comes home on the weekends, the two work on motorcycles. Richard's father's passion is motorcycles; he refurbishes old ones that have been through accidents. He then re-sells them. On Saturday nights, after Richard's mother is asleep, Richard and his father go for rides.

One day, while Richard and his dad are working on one of their motorcycles, Richard's mother announces she is pregnant. Richard's father is elated and reminds the mother that after Labor Day, he should be getting a promotion, meaning he will be home four or even five days a week. The family has some good weekends in a row: the parents dance under the moonlight, Richard's father naps while his mother reads aloud to Richard, Richard and his father look for arrowheads where Indians used to live. When Labor Day comes around, however, Richard's father learns that he did not get promoted; his responsibilities have extended beyond North Carolina and Virginia into half the state of Tennessee, meaning he will be able to be home even less. Richard's father is upset, and his mother, feeling even more alone, reveals that she made up the pregnancy. The father is enraged and takes Richard on a ride. The two end up at Blowing Rock past Appalachia, a place where, legend has it, anything that is thrown off the mountain will rise back up the mountain, carried by the wind. Richard's father tells his son he does not know if things will work out with his mother. He proceeds to throw everything he can find off the mountain to see where it goes. Each item drifts off into the darkness. When the father is ready to go home, Richard and his dad get back on the motorcycle, and the two bend into curves, holding on as they speed homeward.