Tessa MacCrae has reluctantly agreed to spend the summer helping her mother and grandmother clean out the family home. They've never been close, but Tessa hopes that time away will help her avoid facing the tragedy of her daughter's death and the toil it's exacting on her marriage. At first, the summer is filled with all-too-familiar emotional storms. Helen, the family matriarch, is domineering and incapable of sharing feelings, and Nancy, Tessa's mother, appears to be little more than a social climber. But with the passing weeks each of their lives begin to change. And for the first time, Tessa can look past years of resentment.