One of Sam Ryan's students has a problem and seeks some personal advice. She and her family immigrated from Vietnam during the boat people exodus and her father wants her to enter a marriage he's arranged for her. She's worried that her husband to be will realize she is not a virgin and Sam counsels her that honesty is always the best policy, but in this case it drives the prospective groom to violence. When the family's restaurant is burned out, the police find a badly burned body. On the home front, Sam continues to bicker with her sister Wyn about whether their mother should be placed in a home and the bitterness over their father's death continues to divide them.