But after many golden summers spent building sandcastles and sharing their dreams for the future, Piper and Maggie grow apart. In her twenties, beautiful and spirited Piper worries she'll never amount to more than the glittering wife of a successful husband, while hardworking redheaded Maggie scrimps and saves her pennies, wondering if she'll ever have the luxury of a passionate romance. It seems they have little in common…until Cameron Chadwick appears on the island. A wealthy Midwestern charmer, Cameron takes moonlit walks on the dunes with Maggie and whisks Piper away to New York City for lavish nights on the town. When both women discover they're pregnant, it looks like the end of their already-distant friendship. But as Maggie and Piper struggle to decide what their lives will be, they realize more than ever before how very much they need a friend.

    Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband—now his last gift to her.As she reluctantly allows construction to begin, Janie clings to the familiar outposts of her sorrow—mothering her two small children with fierce protectiveness, avoiding friends and family, and stewing in a rage she can't release. Yet Janie's self-imposed isolation is breached by a cast of unlikely interventionists: her chattering, ipecac-toting aunt; her bossy, over-manicured neighbor; her muffin-bearing cousin; and even Tug, the contractor with a private grief all his own.As the porch takes shape, Janie discovers that the unknowable terrain of the future is best navigated with the help of others—even those we least expect to call on, much less learn to love.