Feeling adrift after his wife of nearly fifty years passes away, Gene seeks to repair his relationship with his daughter and reflects on the loyalties, betrayals, and secrets that shaped the family's ties to another couple.

Joyce Carol Oates shares her struggle to comprehend a life absent of the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century.

Abram and Juliette have lived down the street from each other all their lives but had no connection until Juliette's mother and Abram's father had an affair that ended in a deadly car crash, then a year later, the teens begin a tentative relationship while picking up their prescription medications.