These Chicago-themed short stories and the capstone novella referencing each of them are filled with a vivid range of characters: among them, retirement brings a couple face to face with the distance in their marriage, a single-parent police officer struggles to make a better life for his young son, a never-married school teacher finds a door to a forgotten dream opens when her parents pass away, an adolescent girl is torn by the conflicting expectations of her immigrant mother and grandfather, a woman's recovery from a devastating divorce is threatened when a new man appears in her life.