Caroline, Annette and Leah St. Clair have spent their lives trying to escape the legacy of their wealthy, social-climbing mother, Virginia, a woman who had little time--and even less feeling--for her daughters. Though the sisters now consider themselves happy, each has lost a certain part of herself.

Then, on the eve of her seventieth birthday, Virginia asks her daughters to help her get settled into her magnificient new estate on the peaceful, rocky coast of Maine. Though their first reaction is to turn her down, each of the sisters ultimately decides to go...to give Virginia what she asks for, perhaps for the last time.

But it is Virginia who gives to her daughters. For amid the glorious beauty of a New England summer, the sisters find answers to question that have troubled them for years, insights into one another and themselves, and learning new truths that will stay with them forever.