What happens to a marriage when a husband is responsible for his son’s accidental death? Julia, whose young son Sam died in such circumstances, flees to the West of Ireland in a kind of madness to stay with her father-in-law Jeremiah, a dour, secretive old farmer, still living in a rundown farmhouse. Here, in his silent company, Julia stumbles upon the dark secrets of her husband’s family, and learns, to her greater understanding, how tragedy is passed on from generation to generation.