Scott is a man who has been in and out of rehabilitation for eight years and is haunted by the ghost of his dead mother pressing him to return home to Louisiana to the family he turned his back on years ago. Arriving on horseback without warning, he immediately meets his niece and nephew, Gracie Anne and Charles.

As the kids tell him about their frog that passed, Scott comes face to face with Katherine, his brother's wife and his first love. She's at first shocked, then openly hostile. He insists that his dead mother sent him to make amends. Falling asleep in the tub prompts Katherine's anger again, she asks him to leave and come back on Thursday when William is back. After Gracie Anne helps clean up his appearance, Scott goes to Charles' school at lunch and helps him get a girl to notice him.