Helen is a young social worker in Chicago who can't find one of her clients, Marty Munoz. Marty was released from detention, and it is Helen's responsibility to get him through the first six months, but he has not checked in for a week. Despite a snowstorm, she heads south to check out a house where his roommates say he may have gone.

The only house she finds in the area is an abandoned, dilapidated, overgrown mess, but she decides to get as close as she can. Maybe Marty is there but can't get back to the train due to the weather? When Helen enters, beautiful sights, sounds, and smells welcome her. Lively conversation floats from the dining room, and there she finds Marty.

In the short week he's been at the house, Marty has been transformed; he looks different and sounds different and is happier than she's ever seen him. When Helen leaves the house that night, she wonders if she has walked out of a dream, or is what she saw something miraculous? Just as the house looks broken and crumbling on the outside, it is exquisite on the inside, just as the residents appear to have fallen to the lowest rungs of society-but is that who they are inside? Helen quickly learns appearances can be deceiving.