When twelve-year-old Billy’s eight-year-old sister is diagnosed with cancer it shatters their happy and loving family. Months of suffering ends in a painful heart-breaking death. Billy’s father takes to drink, his mother has an affair and Billy is left to grieve alone.
Billy’s father finds out about his wife’s infidelity and is shocked and angry. He begs her to stay, but unrepentant she leaves him for her lover. Billy hates her mother for breaking up their family. On his own, he cannot be a mother and a father to Billy, and this causes problems between them.
A year later having heard nothing from his mother, they receive a letter in post from her filing for divorce. The settlement forces them to sell the house and move into a bedsit. Billy is torn between his parents, as neither have his best interests at heart.
After his dad loses his job through his drink problems, Billy hit’s rock bottom. The promise of a better life has gone and Billy wonders what will become of him Then his dad announces they are to move in with his mum in her new house. Billy is suspicious and fears something more sinister is going on. Where will this leave him, and how can he ever recover from the mess his family have left him in?