Lissy Jablonski was fifteen years old when her father ran off with the red-haired bank teller. That same summer, Lissy and her mother embarked on an adventure of their own - a return to her mother's home town and its cast of extraordinary characters. Their comforting 'girl talks' suddenly began to yield startling secrets, quickly turning those months into what Lissy's mother referred to afterwards as 'the summer that never happened'. Now, thirty-year-old Lissy finds herself looking back. The arrival of an old boyfriend from that same summer triggers a realisation in her that pleasures and sorrows can come from the most unreasonable realities of the heart - and that from the past can come a way to face the future.