A Hungarian Jewish woman lives on a former homestead in Montana, struggling to keep up with taxes and laborious property upkeep now that her husband Caleb has passed. She’s sold all her horses because she can’t bear looking at them now that Caleb has gone. The two of them met at the University of Chicago, he a Montana-bred country boy and she from the Windy City. They decided to abandon the grind of academia for a country life, much to her mother’s chagrin - Caleb was longing to go home and she was enamored by the thought of owning horses. But Caleb fell down dead out of the blue, and she is left to take care of an aging estate.

One day, soaked to the bone from a lengthy attempt to seal off their creek in a seasonal dam, she meets a logger from down the road. He introduces himself as Frank Bowman and proceeds to visit for a small chat every day, checking in and bringing firewood. They spend more and more time together; Frank teaching her boys how to use farm equipment and recuing their mother when the heat wouldn’t start on a below freezing night. That night he asks her to come dance at the one neighborhood joint. She remembers Caleb juggling for the crowd gathered there one Fourth of July. Her history with Caleb and her new life with Frank intertwine in her mind.

On the fifth anniversary of her and Frank meeting, a dam breaks and she begins sobbing. She takes leave of her job and cries for months in flash floods, until one day Frank shakes her by the shoulders and yells at her to stop. With the change of seasons, her season of grief stops.