"Why don't you cry?" addresses the delicate topic of suicide. Jessica is very closed, Barbara is a time bomb. The two look for each other when, at the psychology college internship, Jessica meets Barbara.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
After several behavior problems, teenager John is admitted to a psychiatric clinic by his family. There he meets Judith, for who he soon falls in love. The problem is that she does not have long to live and they know it. This shall not prevent the emergence of a great romance in the clinic.
Michael is a 24-year-old who has cerebral palsy and long-term resident of the Carrigmore Residential Home for the Disabled, run by the formidable Eileen. His life is transformed when the maverick Rory O'Shea moves in.