Miles and miles of dark woods spread out before us. In an isolated and eerily-quiet part of the woods, Tadhg connects a tube from the exhaust pipe of his car to the vehicle’s ventilation system. Tadhg’s young son Darach is impatient to get home but Tadhg is not listening. As they both sit in the car, it slowly fills with smoke - but Tadhg ignores it. Darach gets increasingly upset to the point of panic. At the very last moment, Tadhg jumps up and drags his son from the car. He wakens from this nightmare with a start…
Six months later, Darach is still somewhat nervous and uneasy around his father, which Tadhg attempts to remedy without success.
In a marriage counsellor’s office, Tadhg and his estranged wife Neasa attempt to patch up their differences, but only end up adding salt to their wounds. When Tadhg tries to discuss their son, Neasa refuses to listen and leaves.
Tadhg expresses his frustration and regret to his son’s teacher, who, with a degree of hesitation, advises him to seek his son’s forgiveness. When Darach then tells his father that he’d like him to move back home, Tadhg is delighted, feeling that at last, the troubles of the past are over. His beloved family will be together again.
With newfound optimism, Tadhg appeals to Neasa to give him another chance and let him move back home. But Neasa can’t take it any more. Distressed, she reveals the truth to Tadhg; that their son died that day in the woods, and that Tadhg has been unable to accept his death. Every week he comes up with a different story to explain Darach’s absence – or pretends that he has just come from spending time with him. If he can’t come to terms with the death of their son, there is no hope for them.
Finally it seems that Tadhg has come to some kind of acceptance that his son is dead. Neasa agrees to try and forgive him.