Amy must decide if a little girl in the middle of a bitter custody dispute is being molested by her father; doing research for a paper, Donna shadows Maxine during a day in which she deals with the neglected children of a severely depressed mother who refuses treatment; Kyle receives an unwelcome visit from his mother and sister; after employing a private investigator to follow Amy for over a year, Michael sues for full custody of Lauren; the decorator that Amy hires to redo the kitchen disparages Maxine's taste.

Maxine's first day back on the job finds her removing a boy from the custody of his mother, who was one of Maxine's clients for a short time eight years earlier; although Amy is worried about Maxine's bottling up her grief, she becomes unsettled when Kyle tells her that Maxine has been talking to Charles instead of her own children; Kyle does an end-run around Lily to get an indigent patient the reconstructive surgery she desperately needs after an accident; Amy hears the custody case of a teenager whose divorced parents disagree about sending her to a school for overweight children.