Three generations of women live on a small island off the coast of Washington state with their men with whom they have no end of problems.
When Rachel, a radio personality, discovers a Purple Heart at a garage sale she decides to find out its history. She finds that the medal belonged to a man named Harlan Erickson, a long-lost brother of the town's leading citizen.
A teenage mother is forced to give up her baby for adoption and, 19 years later, when she tries to contact her son, she learns that he died, under questionable circumstances when he was three years old.
