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Intro
After long-haul trucker Leroy Moffitt has an accident on the road, he finds himself living at home full-time for the first time in 15 years. It’s not what he expects: his wife Norma Jean seems distant, as she’s always working, taking night classes, or doing new hobbies like bodybuilding. The two of them are emotionally disconnected, and while Leroy wants to reconnect, Norma Jean seems to have no interest in him. He suspects that this estrangement is rooted in the fact that neither of them have ever really discussed the sudden death of their infant son, Randy, over 15 years ago. After Randy died, Leroy went out on the road and he and Norma Jean haven’t been close since. While he considers bringing up Randy’s death to ease the tension between them, he isn’t sure how to broach the topic, so he doesn’t say anything at all.
To pass the time, Leroy begins to dabble in crafts such as macramé and needlepoint. He also smokes a lot of weed and builds models out of Lincoln Logs, which gives him the idea to build himself and Norma Jean a log cabin so that they don’t have to rent anymore. Early in their marriage, Leroy promised to build Norma Jean a house, but when Leroy tells her about the log cabin idea, she is skeptical. A log cabin would be out of place in the new subdivisions that have sprung up around their small Kentucky town. Nonetheless, Leroy keeps studying blueprints and daydreaming about the cabin. Meanwhile, Norma Jean is taking a writing class, she’s exercising regularly, and she’s reading novels and books about history. Leroy believes that Norma Jean is slipping away from him.
Norma Jean’s nosy mother Mabel often drops by their house. She brings over a handmade dust ruffle, mocks Leroy for doing needlepoint, and criticizes Norma Jean’s smoking and housekeeping. Once, she describes a baby who died of neglect—a story that Norma Jean interprets as subtly casting blame on her and Leroy for the death of their son. A particular fixation of Mabel’s is the Civil War battleground memorial in Shiloh, Tennessee. Mabel visited Shiloh on her own honeymoon, and she thinks that Leroy and Norma Jean should rekindle their marriage by taking a trip there.
When Leroy asks Norma Jean about visiting Shiloh, she agrees to go. A few days later, they pack a Sunday picnic and take a long, silent drive there. At the park, Leroy sees a log cabin riddled with bullet holes—a relic from the bloody Civil War battle that took place there many years ago. When Leroy and Norma Jean sit down for their picnic, Norma Jean abruptly ends their marriage. While Leroy tries to convince her that she doesn’t really mean it, Norma Jean says that since Leroy’s return home, she’s been feeling like she’s 18 again—and she does not want to “face that all over again.” As Leroy frantically thinks about what he can do to make Norma Jean stay with him, she stands up and walks away. Leroy tries to follow her, but his injury makes it hard for him to keep up. When he at last catches up to Norma Jean at a nearby river, he sees her waving her arms—but he cannot tell if she is beckoning him or simply doing one of her bodybuilding exercises.
