1984, Wyoming. Josh is sitting in front of the fire doing his homework. His father stumbles home late through the door drunken after getting kicked out of the local bar. Josh knew better not to get in the way of his father. He never recovered after his wife’s death, and drinks the pain away every night and tends to take it out on whoever's near him.

Josh is being homeschooled by a close family friend, Linda, and has recently started to lose focus on his school work. Linda explains problems on a sheet but Josh doesn’t pay attention. His mind is elsewhere. After Linda leaves, Josh takes a walk through the family property. He traces over the places him and his mom used to sit at and talk.

Once again his father comes home drunk. He focused on Josh tonight and left him with a black eye. Linda questions Josh about it, but he says he fell while hiking around.

Josh starts to distance himself from the world. He feels alone. His father leaves for work and he doesn’t feel like doing his homework. He goes to explore around his father’s office, which is normally off limits. He finds the key and opens the door to a strong stench of liquor. He finds the desk and floor littered of empty bottles. He doesn't find anything interesting, but looking through the bottom of a dusty drawer he finds an old radio device. He decides to take it with him and hides it in his room.

Josh messes with the radio, but he only hears static and faint radio feedback. He keeps it near him though. His father comes home once again drunk, and Josh quickly puts the radio under him hiding it. His father sees it and asks him what it is. Josh declines having anything and his father gets angry. He pushes Josh away to see the radio, and gets extremely angry. He takes the radio and locks Josh in his room until the next morning. Josh hears his father leave for work and manages to exit his room. He finds the radio and brings it back to his room. As he works on his homework the radio turns on and a female voice asks if anyone is there. Josh responds and they begin talking. Josh becomes comfortable talking to her and starts to open up. She shares stories with him and they become close.

As Josh is in the living room playing video games, his father comes home. This time it feels different, his father is quieter than usual. Instead of yelling at Josh he goes upstairs mumbling and lays down in his bed. Josh follows to see why, and hears his speaking nonsense, and shrugs it off as him being drunk as usual.

In the morning, Josh woke up later than usual. Every morning he wakes up at the same time, because his father’s truck wakes him up. This time, he woke up and looked out the window. He sees his father's truck still in front of the house. He goes to check on his father and finds him on the floor in the kitchen. He calls 911 and they’re taken to the hospital. His father has a stroke and was diagnosed with early onset alzheimers. His father was returned home with Linda and Josh.

As Josh is tasked with taking care of his father, he starts to fall apart even more with his homework. Linda comes over to the house much less frequently. His father progressively gets worse. When his father falls asleep, Josh turns back to the radio to talk to the girl. She offers Josh advice and guides him through each day. She teaches him everything.

1985, this particular morning Josh’s father became unresponsive to everything. He is taken to a local home. Josh returns to the house as it is being cleared out by the movers. Josh packs his things and moves off to college. He forgets to bring the radio, and it is packed with the rest of the items.

Josh visits his father often. He usually stares at the TV and barely looks at Josh.

1987, during his father’s final day, Josh is by his side. Josh tries his best to talk to his dad to get something out of him. He begins just venting out everything. He tells his dad he hated him, how he made his childhood awful. How he misses mom, and about the girl over the radio. His father's eyes light up after Josh mentioned his mom and the radio. His fathers mutters about how the radio was the way he and Josh’s mom communicated while she was in the hospital and was at work. Josh then questions who the girl on the radio was, and his father tells him how his mother was always angry about not being able to raise Josh, because she knew she wasn’t going to make it. Josh’s father dies shortly after this.

After the funeral, Josh visits his parents' graves one more time before he moves away. As he looks at them, he sees a number under his mother’s grave stone. The number is the frequency that Josh talked to the girl over.