After a drunk college boy falls off a balcony, a slew of characters--a groundskeeper, another student, a chaplain, and an RA--relate to his death in different ways. Their stories are sidelined for the core matter: that a boy died.

When a young girl in a contemporary northwestern American town dies, one of her neighbors and former friends rethinks her relationship with death.

After a friend loses her husband, a man steps up to help her care for her children and cope with the loss, only to find himself face-to-face with his own tragedy.

With a local man on trial for the murder of his family and a history of tragedy in the town, a group of neighborhood kids contemplate death.

A teenager learns how to cope with the premature loss of his father. Through a newly developed relationship with his uncle, he discovers a new version of his father he wasn't privy to during his life.

In the 1980s, when one of the women in a New York female friend group is on the brink of death, her friends reflect on their children, particularly the ones who are gone, and their attachments to each other.

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.

The tragic loss of his childhood friend puts a boy on the path of religion - but his inner feelings remain as repressed and turbulent as they always were.

Three months after the death of his wife, a man tries to convince himself that he has not truly suffered a loss, all the while missing his wife more than ever.

A divorced 16 year old girl reflects on how the sexual trauma she experienced as a child perpetuates in her relationships with men throughout her life, forcing herself to grow up too early and leaving her starved for affection and love.