When a middle-aged man's wife moves away to go back to school, he worries that he will not be able to care for their three children on his own. As the year goes on, the wife becomes increasingly distant, and the husband, resentful of her for leaving, wonders if he can trust her or if their marriage will soon fall apart.

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.