It takes a severe rash on Molly Redwine's rear end to make her realize Tee, her husband of over twenty years and the father of her two children, is having an affair. As the wife of a valued and high ranking employee of Coca-Cola, the company that dominates Atlanta's industry, Molly enjoys all of the benefits accorded to her. She has a lovely home in the high-rent district of Ansley Park, membership in the exclusive Driving Club, and key positions in all the best charities in town, and most importantly, she has her family. But when Tee announces that he plans to marry his new lover, a successful and ambitious Coca-Cola lawyer, Molly stands to lose everything. When her domineering mother suddenly dies, and her children scatter across the country, and her Atlanta crowd slowly and subtly close ranks around Tee, Molly finds herself completely adrift. Devastated by her crumbling world, she takes refuge with her friend, Livvy, on Martha's Vineyard to recuperate and come to terms with her new loss. When the summer season ends, Molly decides to stay on, and takes a cottage on a remote, up island pond. In lieu of rent, she tends a pair of cantankerous swans and delivers food to their owners, an elderly and infirm pair of cousins. Molly finds her caretaking duties extended to include Dennis, the recently arrived young cancer patient living next door, and then her own grieving father, who comes to visit for Thanksgiving and Christmas. As Molly's stay up island widens the distance between her and her old life in Atlanta, she lets go of her outworn notions of family and becomes part of a strange, but very real, new family. As the long and brutal Vineyard winter closes in, Molly braces herself for the search for renewal and the strength to forge a new life for herself.