Distraught over her marriage to James, Medina drives her two young sons over a gravel road toward a house on a lake. She is also a young girl in her parentÕs car, riding over the same road. War reaches into their lives, driving a traumatic past toward unimaginable loss. In Jane M. DownsÕ nontraditional narrative, the past is inextricably woven into the present, filling each moment with a sense of the breadth of human suffering, desire, and need.