Eau Claire, a small town in Wisconsin. Lorraine and her husband, Fred, have four children. Lorraine is trying to raise them as best as she can, while she and Fred take series of short-term jobs to make ends meet. But one night, when she's feeling particularly exhausted, Lorraine cracks: after an umpteenth argument with Adam, her oldest fifteen-year-old son, she reaches the end of her patience. In the middle of the winter night, she boots him out of the house, on the pretext that he's a homosexual. She then proceeds to burn all her son's possessions, claiming to be protecting the family from shame.