Patsy Keane survived her childhood, and some days that's all that matters. As the child of an alcoholic mother, Patsy is not prone to nostalgia. She lives in a world of her own creation, where Beverly Keane's maternal shortcomings are just a bad memory. It would be a perfect world if Patsy wasn't eternally haunted by the memory of what really happened on the day her sister Kathleen went missing-and by the foolish lie she told that day. She's lived with it for forty-two years.

Since that terrible time, Patsy has distanced herself from everyone and everything in her past. She is now a well-respected teacher in Calgary, the proud owner of a vintage home, and the occasional companion of a lovely man who seems content to keep their relationship casual. It's a stable life-until a mysterious woman shows up at her door claiming to be Nora Stone, a childhood friend of Kathleen's. Nora further claims to have information about Kathleen's fate, facts she acquired in a manner that defies belief. As Patsy tries to figure out whether Nora is real, real but crazy, or something even more sinister, the rest of her carefully compartmentalized life begins to come apart, one well built piece at a time.