The script and the characters portrayed are drawn primarily from the experience of one woman, but include experiences drawn from 30 other women whose husbands have been incarcerated. Life before Richard's imprisonment shows a reasonably happy and stable family with cooperative parenting. Richard is apparently having some problem in his business, and the viewers are left to imagine that he has engaged in some unlawful activity that leads to his being sentenced to 10 years in a Federal prison, with the possibility of parole in 4 or 5 years. Following the sentencing, Sophie is not informed by the authorities about where Richard is to be imprisoned, and she knows nothing about his whereabouts or condition until he calls her some months later from a prison 3,000 miles from their home. Sophie's anxieties and difficulties are dramatized as centering in the management of the children and their feelings about the loss of their father, maintaining an adequate income for the family, and dealing with her own feelings of abandonment and social isolation. Her conversations with Richard on the phone turn into bitter recriminations, as he blames her for trying to have a social life without him, and she blames him for not considering her feelings and needs. He is afraid of losing her, and she is upset that she has to fend without his help. Finally, Richard returns home on parole, and the dramatization turns to the problems of his reintegration into the family that has become independent without him. The dynamics of the mutual adjustment of family members is dramatized.