Faith Sullivan's thoughtful, slow-moving novel, set in rural Minnesota in 1952, explores the conflicted loyalties of three women: 59-year-old Kate Drew, her dear friend and distant relative, Harriet McCaffery, and Kate's great-niece, Bess, a volatile teenager whom Kate and Harriet have raised from the age of 7 after the car crash that killed Bess's parents. Bess's mother, Celia, had also been orphaned in early childhood and raised by Kate and her husband, Martin.

Looking back at Celia's death 10 years ago, Kate regrets not having confronted Celia's surly, hard-drinking husband long before the night that he took Celia's life and his own. Kate had lost her own husband only eight months earlier and reasoned that putting Archer in his place was a man's job. It turns out to be just the task "that a woman must do," however, and shirking this haunts her for the rest of her life.