Cassie Quinlan has been told by her mother, Eileen, that her father was killed in the war shortly after their marriage. In the years that follow, a series of men move through their lives as Eileen tries to find a father for her daughter. Growing up, Cassie wants nothing more than to find the elusive perfect family that she has never known -- the family she has been taught to believe it is possible for women to obtain if they only 'try hard enough'. When her musician-husband runs out on her after finding out that she's pregnant, Cassie finds her dreams in tatters and herself reliving her mother's life: a woman left alone with a child. As the story moves back and forth between time and place, we see how Cassie gradually comes to realise that her father' absence and society's version of family has come between herself and her mother and tainted all the relationships they have had with other people. In her attempts to escape the limbo of waiting for her perfect life to begin, Cassie takes us on a journey sometimes humorous and sometimes tragic through time and place and through a woman's heart.