It is just after Christmas, and the New England weather has worsened. Doyle has dragged his reluctant sons to a speech by Jesse Jackson, despairing at their indifference to politics. The two boys, both adopted, are close in age, but in character they couldn't be more different: Teddy, warm and affectionate, believes his calling is in the Catholic Church. The older by a year, more serious by nature, Tip is happiest alone in his lab, labelling and categorising fish specimens. When they are involved in a violent accident on the icy road, the family is forced to confront certain truths: about how the death of Bernadette, Doyle's wife, has affected the family, and about the anonymous figure, never discussed, who is the boys' real mother.