A father and his two sons have won the war: which is the father's way of describing his bitter divorce and custody battle. They leave Kansas City and drive through the night to Albuquerque, united by their father's promise to take on the world together. The boys join their school basketball teams, while their father works from home, smoking cheap cigars to hide another smell. Soon their father's missteps - the oddly packed lunches, his dead-eyed absentmindedness - become sinister and strange, and the boys find themselves watching him become someone else.