Five women, friends at college, find their interlocking relationships strained when one of them, in her late thirties, decides to have a second trimester abortion after delaying the decision in hopes that her husband will change his mind.  The novel records the voices of her four friends as they struggle to bridge the gap between what they think they should feel and what they discover they do feel.  The friends are Nan, an obstetric nurse; Anastasia, a business woman; Jean, a former social worker; and Virginia, a community college professor.  These women have all wrestled with - and are still engaged by - the questions of careers vs. motherhood, marriage vs. divorce, and pregnancy vs. abortion.