Twenty-five years later, Terry returns to his hometown in Maine. His father has died, and he must face the truth about the anger he has felt toward his father and aspects of his father's character that he hadn't noticed when he was a young man. He also learns more about the Wentworth family, whose father, Charles, was driving and lost his own family after the car wreck. The turning point occurs when Terry learns that Katherine Wentworth, the daughter of the family on that long-ago Christmas Eve, is coming back to the family seaside "cottage" for the first time.