After a shattering incident of violence in New York, Daniel has returned to the town where he grew up. There, along with Kate and her daughter, Ruby, he settles into the kind of secure and comfortable family like he longed for during his emotionally barren childhood. But then he falls helplessly in love with Iris, the black woman whose son is Ruby's best friend - the beginning of an affair that eventually imperils all their relationships, Daniel's profession, their children's emotional well-being, and their view of themselves as essentially good people.