A girl welcomes cruelty into her life in an attempt to get closer to a father living with chronic pain. A woman obsessed with her lineage draws her family into inheriting more than they bargained for. A young boy, burdened by the adults with whom he keeps company, arrives at the end of a brief sailing trip directing their futures as well as his own. A woman returns home to spend a weekend with old high school friends and at last understands something about her mother that had been trailing her for years. Suddenly her voice turns soft, almost tender. `But you know what you used to say at bedtime, don't you? You used to hold my face in your hands, and say, ``You're the best mommy in the universe.'' '... She wants us to savour the image of me holding her face, cherishing her, reading her mind. These are stories about dislocation and about home -- about leaving it, returning to it, needing it, rejecting it.