In 1980 a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in a cloistered town on the nicest part of Long Island, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly worse for wear, and the family begins the hard work of moving on with their lives. They resume their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that although their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what ensured their safety. But nearly forty years later, when Carl’s mother dies and the family comes home to mourn her, it becomes clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything.