Divorced, the father of a ten-year-old boy with congenital heart disease, he suddenly has to deal with a past he thought comfortably behind him. His ex-wife, a capricious woman given to periods of madness, cannot deal with the fact that their son Paul is going to die, so David is forced to care for a young boy he scarcely knows.
At the Connecticut community college where he teaches English, David becomes involved with three haunted lives: a back-to-school older woman who becomes infatuated with him; a bright, engaging Latino man hell-bent on self-destruction; and the pretty young music teacher Lois, a mysterious woman David doggedly pursues, hoping for an affair. Each of these characters pushes David to question the placid, uneventful life he has created for himself.
As the year moves on—and his son begins to die—David finds himself shaken to the core of his being as he watches his careful world spiral out of control.
