The unforgiving New England weather has taken a turn for the worse on the day Doyle drags his reluctant sons to a speech by Jesse Jackson. Fired by Jackson's rhetoric, he is perplexed by the boys' indifference. Tiff and Teddy are adopted. Teddy - open, affectionate, the gentle dreamer - thinks he has found his calling in the Catholic church. Tip is more serious, reserving his own passionate interest for ichthyology. When they are involved in a violent accident on an icy road, the family is forced to confront certain truths: about how the death of Bernadette, Doyle's beloved wife, has affected them all, and about the anonymous figure, never discussed, who is the boys' real mother.