The year is 1982, and the people of the Hudson Valley community of Fervent have begun to move on from a homicide that upended the once quiet town. When the former neighbors who were convicted of the crime, James and Ella White, are proven innocent and return to Fervent, some people have cause for concern. Sylvia Upshaw and her best friend, Lafayette “Fate” Jolly, are uneasy about the Whites’ return. While the Whites were incarcerated, Sylvia revealed an explosive secret to their adopted son, Morgan, with devastating consequences. During the murder trial, Fate’s testimony helped seal their fate. James and Ella won’t let the betrayals go unpunished. Sylvia and Fate quickly become victims of harassment from the Whites, and when another murder is committed in Fervent, the town is left to fend for itself.

When motherhood looms, Azalea “Knot” Centre begins to learn that her freedom has come at a high price. Low on money, ostracized from her parents and cut off from her hometown, Knot turns to her neighbor, Otis Lee Loving, in search of some semblance of family and home. A lifelong fixer, Otis Lee is determined to steer his friends and family away from decisions that will cause them heartache and ridicule. After his failed attempt to help his older sister, who lives a precarious life in the North, Otis Lee discovers a possible path to redemption in the chaos Knot brings to his doorstep. But while he's busy trying to fix Knot's life, Otis Lee finds himself powerless to repair the many troubles within his own family, as the long-buried secrets of his troubled past begin to come to light.