The story of two women -- a country doctor's wife with a haunting past living in Maine at the turn of the century and her granddaughter, a twice-divorced San Francisco school-teacher living in the present. Linked by bitter disappointments, compromise, and powerful grace, the two lives seem remarkably similar, despite the distinctly different times in which they lived. Their stories expose the nerves that lie hidden in marriages and families and the hopes and regrets that lie buried in the hearts of women