Thirteen year old Grace McCabe is having a difficult time adjusting to her new life in Ashland, OR, where she's moved with her widowed contractor father, Jack McCabe, mid-school year from Denver for Jack's new job. Adding to that adjustment problem is Jack befriending, solely as a friend, next door neighbor Audrey in doing things with her that Jack used to do with Grace's mother, while Grace can see that Audrey would like that friendship to blossom into something more. Having made no real friends and suffering in her schoolwork, Grace discovers a letter written by similarly aged Toni who in a heartfelt message states that she is looking for a friend at least as a pen pal. Instead of going through the postal service, Grace, writing back, decides to drop her letter off at what Toni has listed as her address. Grace receives a letter in return from Noelle Webb, who Grace just assumes is Toni's sister. What Noelle fails to mention in that return letter is that she is actually Toni's mother, a college English professor, who is still grieving Toni's passing which happened shortly after she wrote that initial letter almost two years ago. Noelle and her husband Brian Webb's marriage could not survive the grief associated with Toni's passing, Brian who has just had drawn and issued divorce papers. Despite Noelle's lie by omission, that letter begins what appears to be a process of healing for both the Webb and McCabe families, that omission however having its consequences.