Phillip, a thirteen-year-old schoolboy, disappears without a trace for a week. When he reappears, his mother is faced with questions that lead her to see her own life in a new light. She and his teachers can only guess what the boy was looking for, wondering whether he had been in the woods or was toying with death, triggered by his father’s passing. His mother is unable to allow her son to live a life of his own on which she can only have a limited influence.