In the two years since the loss of her husband and twin daughters in a fatal car crash, Louise has avoided facing up to the full extent of her bereavement by caring for her husband's elderly great-aunt. But now Aunt Bea, too, is dead and Louise is robbed of both a dear friend and a home. Caring is what Louise does best, and - with the proviso that she will not work in households with children - she joins an agency that specialises in supplying temporary domestic help. The demands made upon her, and the homes in which she finds herself, are varied and occasionally bizarre, but in confronting them she makes friends and discovers self-confidence.