When Ryan learns that the father he never met has died, he travels to the Pacific Northwest to meet his half-siblings, Michelle and Fred, and help sort the estate of a man who abandoned each of them differently.

At first, the trip is awkward logistics: airport arrivals, wrong turns, beer, guest rooms, family names that do not fit, and the terrible etiquette of grieving someone who was never properly yours.  Then the siblings enter their father’s house and find the truth waiting in objects: his ashes on a serving tray, a will that leaves Michelle everything and both brothers nothing, a workshop filled with the patient craftsmanship he never spent on his children, and a baby photograph that rewrites Ryan’s understanding of his mother’s pain.