The effects of World War II resonate through the lives of two families - one American and one European - living outside of Boston. As Jenny grows up in the shadow of her parents' dark experiences in Trieste during the war, she is pulled to the haunting art and ironic gaze of her next-door neighbor Jonas, whose own father, preparing for deployment as an army medic, died before he was born. But when the mysterious Eric Stram enters her life unexpectedly, she learns how her parents' past is not behind them but will continue to push her life in unforeseen - and possibly unwanted - directions. This poignant tale of the echoes of the past and the complications of the present explores the tensions between duty to family, and the desires of the individual, and the striking way that art can draw disparate lives together.