After his mother dies, Dan McCarthy returns to his upstate New York family home hoping to find out why his older brother Robert was not at the funeral. Once a promising pianist, Robert now drives a delivery truck when not hassling his girlfriend Julie. Dan hangs out with the two for several days while repairing his car. At a lake one night, Robert threatens Dan and Julie with a gun, triggering flashbacks to his father's suicide.

In the 1930s, the onset of puberty provokes alarm and confusion for a young girl, causing her Aunt to reflect on her own younger days at a village dance during the First World War.