Anne Rivers Siddons's insightful and deeply felt narrative takes us back into the place she knows best -- Carolina's Low Country.

Anny Butler is a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changed when she met Lewis Aiken, an exuberant surgeon fifteen years older than Anny. When they marry, she finds her family. Not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are one another's surrogate family. They are called the Scrubs.

Instantly upon meeting them at the old beach house on Sullivans Island, which they co-own, Anny knows that she has found home and family.

Bad things begin to happen, but still the remaining Scrubs cling together, watched over and bolstered by Camilla Curry, the heart and core of their group. It is the first time Anny has felt this kind of love and support. But Anny must learn that everything is not as it seems, that some loves carry a secret and terrible price.