A woman awakes during the night to a shadow of a man standing before her with a baseball bat raised above his head. She yells for help until a gunshot silences her screams.
Two years earlier, LISA DRAYTON (30), a beautiful businesswoman of color, arrives home to find her husband, PAUL (50), a Caucasian attorney, has cooked her dinner. He confesses he was inspired by the hope they could eat a quiet meal then make love that evening. She tells him she is exhausted from working such long hours, and he asks why she does so since they do not need the money. She tears up and tells him that she still worries about not having enough to eat or a place to live then reminds him about how her family threw her out when she was only a few years out of high school.
Lisa has lunch with her best friend, Mila, and relays her conversation with Paul. When Mila urges her to let go of the past for the sake of the present, she becomes hostile and yells she no longer wishes to talk about it.
Paul’s friend and doctor, JOE MORGANSTEIN, meanwhile informs Paul that he has Autosomal Dominant Polycystic kidney disease (“ADPKD”) and has over three cysts in each kidney. He informs him ADPKD is a genetic condition such that Paul’s family probably will not be able to donate a kidney.
At a party at Lisa’s homosexual friend, Jason’s, house, Mila’s boyfriend, Steve, confides in Paul that he is contemplating proposing. Steve says that Lisa and Mila talk about everything such that Lisa has confided to Mila her concern that Paul has been ignoring his pain and refusing to have his kidney treated. Paul confesses he did not wish for Lisa to worry so he pretended he was over exercising and that was the cause of his pain. Paul admits he has not yet told Lisa that at some point he will need a transplant.
Lisa’s older brother, TERRANCE, visits and tells her that he and their mother, JOYCE, bumped into Jason and heard about Paul’s condition, which he mocks. When Lisa asks Terrance to leave, he tries to strangle her while her housekeeper, DAISY, attempts to thwart him. He pushes Daisy, and Lisa puts a gun to his head then he leaves. Terrance goes to the house of YOLANDA, from whom he is separated, and takes the TV while their two sons are watching it. She accuses him of trying to sell it to buy more drugs, and he beats her. Their 11-year old son, TOMMY, threatens to kill him if he does not stop hitting her.
In a reprise of the opening scene, Terrance goes into the home of his now ex-wife, Yolanda, and raises a baseball bat above his head over her bed at night. When she calls for help, Tommy shoots him. The bullet goes through Terrance’s kidney and into Yolanda destroying one of his kidney's and leaving the other damaged.
