As the hot, oppressive Texas heat takes the breath from her lungs, Addie Brown stands at her grandfather's grave. Deep within her, she senses her anchor to family is gone. She looks across the freshly dug chasm at three of her four cousins. Nothing more than smiling faces on Christmas cards and vacation photos, she remembers once when they were close but something happened. Snapping her back to reality, the minister reads, To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. She wonders when will be my time? But Addie has bargained with God and lost and she feels she can never share her secret with anyone. But through an unusual turn of events, she realizes there is a truth and meaning to the passage from Ecclesiastes that begins to drive her life.