When Roland Beaudreaux is found murdered in the small rustic community of Prairie, Louisiana, his daughter Ginny is the chief suspect. As the Beaudreaux family secrets of abuse, betrayal and lies are then slowly revealed, it becomes a wonder she didn't kill him earlier. Until the true identity of the murderer surfaces.
The first day Roland hits Ginny's mother is the day she announces she is pregnant with Ginny. Roland's abuse continues for seven years, and he returns home one day from his railroad job with a new lover and her daughter. Horrified they've moved right into her home, Ginny's mother comes down with pneumonia as she faces the stress of living in the small shack with her husband, his lover, her daughter and her own daughter. Within a few days she is dead. Ginny's only relief from her abusive life becomes her clandestine visits to Mamee, a black woman in the nearby town of Iberville. Forbidden by her father to associate with the "coloreds," Ginny begins to live a double life in Iberville every day after school. Mamee's strength and her continued nurturing eventually give Ginny the courage to face the demons inside her as well as the man she has called father. The loaded gun fires twice that fateful night. Roland Beaudreaux survives, but days later his dead body is found in the three room shack that has imprisoned Ginny for so many years.