On the outskirts of a town, the boys were found dead inside a tent. Three years later, their fathers have disappeared, too. Ruth Fenn's son was the boy they blamed. For three years, Ruth has accepted her lot as pariah. But now the additional loss of her husband is too much to bear, and she has no choice but to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it. When she meets Milk Raymond, a war vet whose son has been abandoned by his mother, she offers him help. But when the boy's mother returns, their interconnected lives hurtle towards a devastating conclusion.