After a hit-and-run lands a suburban single mother in the hospital, her neighbors gossip about possible suspects, and her son grieves by her bedside.

A young girl performs the twice-daily ritual of giving her grandmother her insulin shot as her uncle schemes to steal the syringes for his own drug use. At the same time, her mother wounds her by placing all of her faith in her brilliant cousin to lift himself out of poverty and into happiness, as if the family is not happy already.

When a writer and her old writing professor reconvene in a Mexican restaurant one final time before the professor's death, they experience a night of unwanted encounters and unnecessary criticism that leaves the writer with a bitter taste in her mouth.