In a small American town, Marilyn, quits her job and sets out on a cross country drive with her eight year old son, Jack, with whom she is desperately trying to reconnect. After hours on the road, the signs of a storm setting in, they pull over to rest and grab a bite to eat at a roadside café.
Sitting in the shadows, a stranger, torn apart by grief and loss, and fueled by anguish and despair, drugs both Marilyn and her son.
She wakes up, alone, on the side of road, only now, Jack has vanished.
Hundreds of miles from home and caught in the belly of a storm. Marilyn enlists the help of an aged and lonely – borderline alcoholic motel owner, Elwood Bailey. They forge an unlikely friendship as they risk life and limb to find Jack and bring him home.