On a Quiet Street

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction, violence, and domestic abuse. The text also contains offensive language about mental health conditions, which the guide replicates in quotation only.

Caleb, a college student living in the gated community of Brighton Hills, Oregon, is standing in front of a car yelling at the driver. He hears a gunshot. Then, he is hit by the car, and he falls onto the ground. He hears two people get out of a car. A man tells the woman that they have to leave. The car pulls away as sirens approach. Then, Caleb dies.

A year after his death, Caleb’s mother, Paige, is standing in her garden when the newspaper boy throws a paper that hits her dog. Paige throws the paper back at the newspaper boy and screams at him. Shortly after, two cops arrive and give her a warning. She berates them for not doing more to investigate her son’s murder. As they leave, Paige’s husband, Grant, arrives. They are separated, but he comes over once a week to clean up the house. Paige tells him that she snuck into her neighbor Danny Howell’s garage and took pictures of the dented fender of his Mercedes.