There are two stories, 180 years apart; two casts of characters. In 2018, our first-person narrator, Everly Winthrop, of an old Savannah family, is a history professor at SCAD and a museum curator. She had, just a year earlier, endured a horrific event. At a parade, a drunk driver ploughed into the crowd and killed Everly’s best friend, Mora. It could just as well have been Everly who died. Why wasn’t it? Although the real guilty party was the drunk driver, Everly is sunk in grief and very pointed survivor guilt, which has isolated her, cut her off from family and friends, from joy, from life. Now in unproductive therapy, Everly is bitter.