But his good life shatters when his emerging alcohol abuse unleashes a family crisis and sends his son to the hospital Deeply frightened, he moves to their weekend cottage to confront his demons. He cannot return home until he is certain his wife and children have no reason to fear him. Patty, his sweet, reserved wife, stays the course at home with their increasingly troubled children and defiantly withstands the buffeting winds of gossip and scandal that sweep through their small town in the wake of Troy's departure. She longs for the day his self-imposed exile ends and she can welcome him home. But busybodies at Troy's workplace assume he left home because his marriage is in trouble. Brook Emerson, new to the company and romantically obsessed with Troy, is encouraged by the assumption and attempts to seduce him, setting in motion a chain of events with harrowing consequences for Troy and his family.