Plot

On a business trip to New Orleans, a damaged man seeks salvation by caring for a wayward young woman.

Something's wrong at the Rileys. Married nearly 30 years, Doug and Lois rarely talk. She doesn't leave their Indianapolis home, and she's ordered a gravestone with their names and birth years on it. He has a long-time Thursday night mistress whom he invites to go with him to a plumbing supply conference in New Orleans. Once there, Doug calls Lois to say he's staying for a while. What's he leaving behind and what's he looking for in New Orleans? And Lois, can she break out?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

A married couple loses their 15-year-old daughter in a car accident after her and her boyfriend took off after Lois (the mother) goes looking for them. Doug, Lois's husband later meets a young girl at a club who says she is 22 and a stripper, but later he finds out she's a 16-year-old runaway. He tries to help her out by making her house nicer and teaching her proper language. Later, his wife meets the girl and becomes upset because she reminds her of her own daughter but a prostitute. The couple try to help the girl make a better life for herself.—Anonymous

In Indianapolis, Douglas Lloyd 'Doug' Riley and Lois Riley are a estranged couple married for almost 30 years that grieves the loss of their 15-year-old daughter Emily. Doug is a successful businessman in the plumbing business who likes to play poker every Thursday with his friend and to meet his mistress, the waitress Vivian (Eisa Davis), after the game. Lois is agoraphobic, takes many pills and does not have sex with Doug. When Vivian unexpectedly has a heart attack and dies, Doug goes to the cemetery and finds a tombstone that Lois has ordered with his-and-her names. This is the last straw in their relationship and Doug travels to a plumbing conference in New Orleans feeling lost. Doug is wandering on the streets and stumbles with a nightclub. The young stripper and prostitute Mallory invites Doug to a private lap dance and when he see his acquaintances from the conference in the nightclub, he accepts her invitation to hide from them but he does not have sex with the teenager. There is an incident but then he takes Mallory home and decides to stay in her derelict house to help her. Doug calls Lois and tells to her that he would stay in New Orleans for a while. Lois decides to drive to New Orleans in Doug's car and he introduces her to Mallory, whose real name is Allison. The couple projects Emily in Allison, but is there still hope or is it too late for Allison and themselves?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Doug Riley and his wife Lois have been living a half life since their daughter Emily was killed eight years ago. Doug has been having an affair with a waitress named Vivian. Lois has struggled for years, harboring a secret and devastating sense of guilt for her daughter's death. She's withdrawn herself and hidden away from the outside world, relying on hairdressers who make house calls, her sister Harriet and a local pastor.

After Vivian dies, Doug is lost. On a business trip to New Orleans, he finds himself standing at a crossroads. Later in a strip club, a 16-year-old lap dancer named Mallory invites Doug for extra services in a private room. He turns her offer of sex down but ends up driving her home to a run-down apartment. Doug makes his own proposition to offer her $100 a day for staying at her place in order to get his head together. No sex. No strings. Mallory agrees.

Doug calls Lois and tells her that he cannot come home. Then he and Mallory settle into a certain kind of domesticity even though Mallory is always wandering around naked and offering sex.

Helpless on her own, Lois, who was previously unable to make it 20 yards to the mailbox, realizes that she must take action to save her marriage. For the first time in eight years, she manages to reach her car and starts heading south, after a couple failed attempts.

Back in Louisiana, Doug has tidied Mallory's apartment and begins trying to clean up her life.

Lois, with a paper bag ready in hand in case of hyperventilation, finally arrives in New Orleans and is shocked to find her husband living with a foul-mouthed under-aged hooker. After noting the similarity between her daughter and Mallory, Lois decides to stay in the apartment as well. The three of them form an unusual family relationship.

Mallory balks when Lois tries to dissuade her from turning tricks and dancing, and they have a small row, whereupon Mallory runs off, presumably to work. She is subsequently arrested, and calls Doug. Doug and Lois pick Mallory up, but while driving back to the apartment, Mallory runs from the car. She explains when she turns back for a moment that she's "...not somebody's little girl. It's too late for that," and darts off into the darkness of the streets.

Doug and Lois realize that she not only isn't their daughter, she can never be, and they return to Indianapolis.

Several weeks later, Mallory calls Doug, and tells him she's on her way to Las Vegas. He tells her that he and Lois are there, and will be there, whenever she wants to call.