Life in the neighborhood is bleak for Dorrie, a misfit 10-year-old whose restrictive upbringing by her disillusioned grandmother leaves her with few friends and a desire to repeatedly run away. But now her mother Lorna is coming home for one of her rare visits, this time determined to turn over a new leaf -- to stay off drugs, raise her daughter, make peace with her mother. All Dorrie wants is to have her little family back to what it once was, but the future will come at a high price, higher than any of them could have imagined.