North of Bay City, Michigan, past the small highway town of Au Gres, past acres of sugar beets and fields of grazing sheep, the Browner family enters the slow curve in the road that leads to a view of Lake Huron. Keith, Annie, and their three children have rented the same cottage here every summer for the past six years. They know this place like the back of their station wagon. But a shadow has fallen over this particular trip: Keith is dying of cancer. It is a fate he has accepted.

Annie however cannot, will not. Once safe inside a happy seventeen-year marriage, Annie finds her entire world turned upside down after Keith's death. Her sister, Jess, does her best to comfort Annie, only to find the boundaries of their own close relationship stretched to their limits. Consumed with grief, mounting bills, everyday tasks that seem insurmountable, and three kids who have become nagging sources of frustration, Annie fails to see that the family is beginning to come apart.

Thirteen-year-old Harry, the oldest, changes into a brooding teen, roaming the streets with a rebellious new friend; Julie, the youngest at nine, starts to lie about her whereabouts, but keeps a secret journal that reveals her true feelings; and Jimmy, sandwiched forever in the middle, can no longer take the pressure of being the peacemaker.

As each child moves toward his or her own level of acceptance, a second threatening event will transform both the children and Annie, teaching them that, even with the loss of Keith, they are still a family - a different family, but one that is no less loving, real, and enduring than they had been with a father and husband in the house.