In the absence of his parents, a young boy reluctantly turns to his elderly maid for help when his piano teacher starts to make inappropriate advances on him.

As his father grows distant, a boy with a developmental disability and his pregnant, newly single mother struggle to make ends meet on their own. Amid their arduous, chaotic lives, his piano lessons become an unexpected solace.

After his father complains that he spends too much time at the piano, a young boy in the 1940s American South plans to rob a grave in order to finance his music lessons.