One afternoon in the autumn of 1972, a lonely widow in Mt. Gilead, Illinois, makes the impromptu decision to rent out a room in her house to a stranger who has come to town. It is risky--she doesn't know anything about him. But Edith Green can no longer bear a life lived alone. And Henry Dees is haunted by the past he carries with him from another small town, particularly by the death of a little girl that some people think was his fault.

And slowly, Henry and Edith's suspenseful dance between secrets and trust leads them to start revealing things to each other -- and themselves ...