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.