Brooke Sullivan arrives for her first day of work at Raker Maximum Security Penitentiary. She’s a nurse practitioner in the prison clinic. The prison was in dire need of a nurse, so she was hired despite her personal connection to an inmate—though Brooke is not sure that Dorothy Kuntz, her cold and distant boss, even knows about the fact that she knows one of the inmates. Dorothy warns Brooke not to share personal information with her patients, not to talk to them about her son, not to prescribe narcotics, and not to take any payment for narcotics. Dorothy implies that the previous nurse is facing charges for selling narcotics to/for an inmate.

Brooke returns to her parents’ house. She inherited the home after her parents died in a car accident. Her 10-year-old son, Josh, and his babysitter, Margie, a neighborly grandmother, are making dinner. Brooke and Josh lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, where Josh was bullied at school. Brooke sees the move to her hometown of Raker as a fresh start for the two of them. However, she is surprised when Josh asks if he’ll meet his father now that they’re in Raker. Brooke wasn’t aware that Josh hoped to meet his father.