Twenty-five years later, Terry returns to his hometown in Maine. His father has died, and he must face the truth about the anger he has felt toward his father and aspects of his father's character that he hadn't noticed when he was a young man. He also learns more about the Wentworth family, whose father, Charles, was driving and lost his own family after the car wreck. The turning point occurs when Terry learns that Katherine Wentworth, the daughter of the family on that long-ago Christmas Eve, is coming back to the family seaside "cottage" for the first time.

Adaptation of the novel by Kent Haruf. Story about a dedicated school teacher and his adjustment to life as a single father and the emotional growth and changes that occur over a year's time in the lives of eight very different people who inhabit a small town in rural Colorado.