Sara Elliott has been forced to give up the life she's dreamed of, to return to Chicago and take charge of her sisters and brother. She finds a job and settles into the house she grew up in, building a life for ten-year-old Doug and teenagers Carrie and Abby. But Sara has another brother, Mack, now twenty, who left home three years earlier. Suddenly he reappears, cheerful and unconcerned, as if he had never broken his promise to stay and help Sara with the children and the house. With bewildering volatility, Mack swings from kindness to cruelty, affection to hostility, keeping the family always on edge, his past and present a mystery. Mack challenges all Sara has achieved. And just when she thinks her life has room only for work and family, she meets Reuben Lister, a client from New York. Together, Sara and Reuben find answers to the questions: What is a mother? What is a parent? What is a family?