Anne-Marie is a literature professor in Vancouver, a mother of three, and a victim of honesty. At her request, her children's father, Con O'Neill, told her exactly what he was thinking. Within four and a half days, she bought four plane tickets to St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland, and left. On the plane, she meets Hugh Forbes, an astonishingly direct man she knew when she was young. They catch up, and their conversation hints at some romantic involvement in the past. Hugh is married, but he and his wife are separated. The plane lands, and they part ways with a promise to meet later. Almost immediately, Anne-Marie has to spend most of her time taking care of her kids, hunting for a job, and restoring the house she had rented to slovenly college students. The house had originated as an insurance policy for her marriage and a base of operations for the kids, but now, fifty yards from where she was born, it is her new home. Her kids and her childhood friend, Laurel, help her with the renovations, but the work is hard. Hugh and Laurel visit sometimes, but the general pattern of Anne-Marie's life is one of intellectual tedium, domestic squalor, and rising depression. Laurel, whom she calls every day and visits often, is a particularly valuable confidant. However, Laurel has her own concerns with anxiety and suicide ideation. On the heels of one particularly trying week and an intervention with Laurel, who has been spilling her secrets to Hugh, Anne-Marie falls asleep with a cigarette in her hand. She wakes up in shock to see holes burned through her sheets. Her first impulse is to curl up into a ball and sleep, but her kids knock on her door, reminding her that they need breakfast and to be driven to school. All the same, she feels her heart breaking after she drops them off and drives home. Her journey, she thinks, has begun again.