It's Thanksgiving week, 1989. We're in Big Piney and Little Piney, two hollows near the town of Garnet in the Blue Ridge Mountains. A handful of mismatched folks - some country people, some far-flung, fancy people - discover they have one thing in common: someone they know is sick, real sick, dying sick. Their paths cross at a local hospice called Solace. Suddenly, they're caregivers, bedside improvisers, doing all they can to beat back death or "hurry him on about his business.