In 1956, a sister and brother miss a train from Boston to New Brunswick, Canada, because they’ve lost their father’s coffin on the way to the funeral; this delay gives the whole family time to reflect on their distinct relationships with their father.

When a family reunion brings together siblings, they realize they are now more like strangers. At the end of the day, a shocking incident tests their bonds.

During the last year of his life, after decades of estrangement due to a drug addiction and an escape from their home in Ohio, a brother reaches out to his long-lost sister.

A chance encounter with an old ex-girlfriend causes a man to remember his past relationship with her and with his cousin, who immigrated from Korea to America to live with his family as a small child. Though she died in a motorcycle accident years ago, when his ex-girlfriend asks how she's doing he lies, creating the life she never had in his imagination.

After one of her father's notebooks is recovered from an icecap, a woman recalls the love story between her mother, a rural woman who always wanted adventure, and her father, an adventurous explorer who disappeared on a voyage to the Arctic.

After a dying mother instructs her children to find their distant aunt and new guardian, they must step outside the home they have always known and embark on a journey toward their new life.

After being abandoned at a young age, a woman tracks down her long-lost mother in a small town in America, where she watches her from a distance. The woman follows her mother as she goes about her daily routine, hoping to build up the courage to finally connect with her after thirty-one years.

In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.

On the day of her mother's funeral, a young woman reminisces about the summers during her childhood spent with her family and friends at their lakeside cabin. As she considers her parents' nontraditional relationship, she also wonders about her own love life.

An elderly woman finally reaches out to her estranged nephews to settle the matter of her will, but her unexpected decision leaves them shocked.