Shy bank clerk John Skillpa leads a lonely existence in Peacock, Nebraska, population 800, by choice out of circumstance. Ever since his mother passed away one year ago, someone else has emerged in his life in he suffering from dissociative identity disorder, a second identity, a female named Emma who remains hidden from the world behind the always drawn curtains in his house. His medical issues are arguably due to the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother when he was growing up. John and Emma lead a somewhat symbiotic relationship in that she cooks and cleans for him. Their world changes when Emma is exposed to the world in, living by the railroad tracks, a locomotive derailing into their backyard shining the town's spotlight on "the Skillpas", Emma assumed to be John's wife. That spotlight leads to Emma meeting among others the mayor and his wife, Ray and Fanny Crill, as the train was actually one being used for Senator Wyatt's reelection bid, the Crills wanting to hold a political rally on the train in their backyard, and a young struggling single mother named Maggie Bailey whose two year old son Jake was fathered by John and who was secretly supported by John's mother on the caveat Maggie stay away from him. These issues lead to fissures emerging in John and Emma's life.