Attuned to her mother's volatile moods, eight-year-old Pearl watches over her small brother while carefully guarding her private passions. Sonia, recently widowed and with her two sons far away in Europe, is learning to live alone again. Then there's Adam, an artist who has yet to learn the true nature of love or grief. In ways unforeseen, all three will be connected by the tragedy that is about to shatter Pearl's life. Combining the intimacy of a family's heartache with the tension of a thriller, this wise, compassionate novel conveys the frightening vulnerability of children as it explores the ties of affection and responsibility that bind people together, but are too often neglected in our modern world.