Merritt Fowler is a natural caretaker who has spent most of her life attending to the emotional needs of those closest to her: her beautiful, erratic younger sister, Laura; her self-sacrificing physician husband, Pom; and now Pom's destructive, Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. Exhausted and confused by the burdens she's taken on, Merritt faces a new crisis when a fierce family quarrel makes her fragile sixteen-year-old daughter, Glynn, flee their Atlanta home to seek sanctuary in California with Aunt Laura, a Hollywood actress whose career is in decline. Following Glynn west and deciding to stay there—against her irate husband's wishes—Merritt hopes to heal the ever-widening fissures between mother and daughter, sister and sister. And on an impulsive trip up the coast into the Santa Cruz Mountains—earthquake country—the three women will have to confront their separate demons in order to save and change their lives.