In Lori Lansens' Leaford, Ontario - home of Rose and Ruby Darlen, the sorrowing parents of Larry Merkel, and not far from Rusholme where Addy Shadd once looked after an abandoned child - love and grief combine to awaken an obese woman from her loneliness. When her husband doesn't come home on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch, who has never learned to be self-sufficient, sets out on a truly remarkable journey of self-discovery.