Claire and Gloria, fellow students, stopped servicing boys and loved each other. After graduation, Claire became a wife and mother and is now guiding her daughter, Casey, through the same treacherous waters. Gloria became a medical doctor in another state, where she married a woman with whom she had shared their university years. They practised medicine together until her partner died under tragic conditions. Heartbroken, Gloria returned to her hometown and discovered Claire's family in crisis. Their long lost love has not diminished, but they must accept reality even as they wish for an impossible future.

Claire helps Casey deal with a boy who uses her for sex after school until, like her mother, she finds a kindred spirit in Kim, and they join together to discover something special together.

Casey's father is angry with the changes in his daughter and his wife until another woman enters his life, and an affair sends the family into despair. It climaxes when an angry man decides that if he cannot have his wife, no one can have her, a choice that means murder.

A long winter melts into a late spring as the story unwinds to a dramatic confrontation.