Dory Lebrun shouldn't be sporting a black eye on the day she and Kirk Hansen are going public with their wedding engagement. But Dory is a couple’s counselor, and one of her clients has a mean right hook. Dory's already divorced one husband herself. But at thirty-eight, she thinks she's found the love of her life, the father for her yet to be conceived children...Kirk Hansen. Then again, maybe she hasn't. Dory's fey aunt Ellen pulls Dory aside and says Dory can't marry Kirk because Kirk might be Dory's half-brother.

Dory decides not to tell Kirk what her aunt has said, but to find the truth of Kirk's parentage on her own. Only the truth involves way too many family secrets and way too many families. And those secrets are layered as deeply as an archeological site and are just as difficult to excavate. With earnest foolhardiness, Dory explores questions of broken photos, broken hearts, alcoholism, biological uncertainty, closeted lives, DNA testing, and unethical therapeutic techniques. And her relationship with Kirk slowly melts down. Finally, Dory begins to see the light at the end of the truth tunnel. But when she reaches that light, will Dory and Kirk need couples counseling themselves?