When Ydessa's husband dies in a Cessna crash in a mid-Ontario lake, she rents a cottage at that lake and stays for three months. There she meets three people who will influence her life dramatically—her landlady, a yoga teacher, and an eight-year-old boy named Henry Rattle. Years later, at the age of twenty-five and reeling from personal tragedy, Henry seeks Ydessa out and they find themselves alone on the day of the Northeast blackout, drawn into an encounter that will change them both.