Tilly, who is now elderly, has had a stroke. While in the hospital, she is aware of her surroundings but cannot speak. As she lay helpless, all Tilly can do is think. Upon reflection of her life with her beloved Skeet, she recalls the days when they were embroiled in secrets, intrigue and grief. (This is where the story goes into flashback.)
Upon Tilly's return from the County where she and her brother William have placed their insane mother in a nursing home, Skeet proposes marriage, finally ready to move forward into a new future with Tilly. She agrees to marry him, anxious to put her mother's dark secrets behind her.
Of concern to Tilly, however, is that Skeet has not been feeling well, suffering from symptoms that he has attributed to a virus. Upon collapsing from his mysterious malady, Skeet is brought to the hospital where he is diagnosed with leukemia.
Enter Doctor Flanders Trumbull, a young diagnostician who has a penchant for the ladies. He is a colleague of Tilly's and has been trying to woo her for some time, flaunting his successes as a medical miracle worker. They become good friends.
Doctor Trumbull aggressively takes on his illness, Tilly well aware that if anyone can do it he can. As Skeet goes through a series of tests, the doctor determines that his leukemia is advanced, prompting him to recommend a bone marrow transplant. Tilly bristles, knowing that her brother William is the answer to Skeet's need for a compatible donor for he is Skeet's half-brother. This was something Tilly had vowed never to reveal to William, not wanting him to know that he was the product of an assault on their mother by Skeet's father who had been murdered by the victim in retaliation. She knows, though, that there is no other choice but to tell him for the sake of Skeet's survival. Tilly does not tell him, however, that it was their mother who murdered Sheffield LeMay, her attacker and Skeet's father, all those years ago, causing her to eventually go insane.
Enter William who, after some soul searching, agrees to help Skeet when he is found to be a compatible donor for a bone marrow transplant. William has his own storyline as he contends with a bitter live-in girlfriend whom he breaks up with.
William and Tilly become closer as he reveals to her their mother's secret marriage to the reverend from the little white church. It is at this time that William begins to realize that it was his mother who murdered Skeet's father...his father...all those years ago.
After the bone marrow transplant, William finds out from the police that his former girlfriend may have been a victim of foul play, and that he is a suspect.
It is finally discovered that William's former girlfriend and her niece had perpetrated a ruse, wanting to make the police think that William had murdered his former girlfriend.
Skeet is finally well enough to go home and with the help of William, brings Tilly back to the county where he has arranged for the two of them to be married in the backyard of Ma's house. (This is where the story comes out of flashback.)
Tilly works hard to recover from her stroke with Skeet's support. She practices walking and talking all over again and is, eventually, released from the hospital. She and Skeet are able to go home and be together again.
