Cate Strickland Galitsky is almost forty years old. She is twice married and divorced. She has been teaching English at Melanchthon College, in Iowa but her job has been cut out in an economic squeeze. An affair with an older man has led to pregnancy and her aborting the child. Cate's life is falling down around her head. She picks up the phone and calls her mother, just widowed, in Mountain City, North Carolina. She asks if she could use the family beach cottage at Ocracoke for the summer to help heal her wounds.

Cate returns to Mountain City to visit her mother before going on to Ocracoke. Her mother has invited herself and her younger daughter Lydia, Cate's sibling, to go to the beach. During their stay at the beach Cate and Lydia have a fierce fight. Cate burns cardboard in the summer…