On an icy evening in December, Kimberley Jamieson's world is shattered by a careless drunk driver who skids into her mother's car.

In the three months since the accident, Kim has turned away from her old pursuits - she quit swimming, then the orchestra, and now she's even skipping school. Kim's father is no help either; a policeman constantly on call, he cannot spare a moment to listen. The road to recovery seems endless. Slowly, Kim does get back in step with the help of her friends.

Mike, a gangly sleuth for the local paper, is hot on the trail of a breaking story involving a runaway boy, a scoop which even makes the pages of the Vancouver Sun!

Even Sylvia, a friend of her mother's recently returned to Ladner, draws Kim out of her own world and helps her to heal. Slowly ... step by step ... Kim finds that life can go on, that she can revisit the local sites she shared with her mother - the dike paths along the river and the Reifel bird sanctuary.