When Jessica meets Daniel through the personals it is almost love at first sight. Unfortunately, both have secrets; Jessica has multiple sclerosis, and Daniel has a history of mental illness, amnesia, and an obsession to learn how his son died. Daniel''s mental illness rears its ugly head and Jessica, a nurse, wants to help him. She feels drawn to him by a vague sense of something familiar, possibly relating to a series of strange dreams she is having. However, suddenly Daniel leaves, causing Jessica great hurt and dismay. He takes up with free spirited Maria, living with her, but all the time planning his exit to go back to Jessica. Even with Daniel gone Jessica cannot stop thinking about him, and she still has the recurring dreams. Her step-father, before he dies, tells her about "far memory" and to "play her hunches." Jessica, a devote Christian, is puzzled but intrigued by George''s dying words. Her friend, Martha, recommends a kind of psychoanalysis as a way of perhaps unlocking her strange dreams. She thus learns of a past life with a husband who strangely disappeared. When Daniel returns he is involved in a fight and hospitalized. He waits until his face heals and then tries again to see Jessica. Jessica, who is still in love with him, directs him to her psychoanalyst who finds that his past lives may have led to his present mental problems, and to Jessica''s great joy, it seems they were together in early New England as husband and wife. The tension builds when together the two find the mystery surrounding the death of his son, Joey.