Protagonist Walter Brickman strains against the protective bounds set by his daughter Barbara, who has cared for him and monitored his obsessive tendencies since his suicide attempt following the death of his wife. He works on his garden relentlessly, going through the motions of family life whilst confiding in a secret friend, finally triumphing as he escapes his daughter’s admonition and makes it to the fair to see his tomatoes have won first prize.

After a ten-year-old boy accidentally kills his friend in 1970s Massachusetts, his father's decision to frame an innocent man unleashes a storm he could never have expected. But why did he lie, and whose fault is it?

When a middle-aged Italian maid works for an American professor, the maid's personal problems and dishonestly interfere with her work and the generosity the professor has given her.

Two women, once the closest of childhood friends, chart diametrically opposite courses through life when scandal drives them apart. Thirty years later, a chance reunion prompts one of them to question everything.