Maybe the worst thing hadn't happened yet. You couldn't know the awful things lined up in the future, looming.The last thing Frances wants is a phone call from Alec, the husband who left her for her sister thirteen years ago. But Susan has disappeared, abandoning Alec and her daughter Kate, a surly teenager with an explosive secret. Reluctantly, Frances is drawn into her sister's turbulent life.

On a hot July day, Lindsay Mathieson, confident, carefree and thirteen years old, walks up the beach where she has played all her life, around the rocks and out of sight. She does not come back. More than thirty years later, her younger brothers and cousins are still dealing with the fallout from that terrible summer.

Maybe the worst thing hadn't happened yet. You couldn't know the awful things lined up in the future, looming.The last thing Frances wants is a phone call from Alec, the husband who left her for her sister thirteen years ago. But Susan has disappeared, abandoning Alec and her daughter Kate, a surly teenager with an explosive secret. Reluctantly, Frances is drawn into her sister's turbulent life.

On a hot July day, Lindsay Mathieson, confident, carefree and thirteen years old, walks up the beach where she has played all her life, around the rocks and out of sight. She does not come back. More than thirty years later, her younger brothers and cousins are still dealing with the fallout from that terrible summer.