Billy Wyatt, a former high school and minor-league baseball player, receives a telephone call from his mother revealing that his former child-sitter, and later in his teens, his first love, Katie Chandler, has died. Wyatt returns home to deal with this tragedy, reminiscing over his childhood growing up with his father, Katie, and best friend Alan Appleby.

The escaped mental patient and delinquent John W. Burns Jr. replaces Dr. Maitlin on a radio show, saying he's the psychiatrist Lawrence Baird.