A fourteen-year-old boy with a love for boats and fear of swimming sets out on a small adventure to reach the river and encounters some difficulties along the way.

When his son is born with a fatal disease, a man struggles to bond with his dying child. After the son's death, the man and his wife enter a year of hardship and, eventually, separation. Now alone, the man spends his days on the Chesapeake Bay trying to distract himself, unsure whether his marriage can be saved.