The book describes an average family thrown into chaos due to an accident suffered by its youngest member. With a background of public discrimination based on color and religion and private feelings about handicaps, the emotions of guilt, pain, jealousy, care, sympathy and love shape and restructure the way the individuals in the family face each other and the outside world. As caretaking roles develop and move through the family, the book covers fifty years of normal interactions interspersed with highs and lows of emotions.