Unlike the other Birthmothers in her utopian community, teenaged Claire forms an attachment to her baby, feeling a great loss when he is taken to the Nurturing Center to be adopted by a family unit.

On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret.

But Caroline,

...

After the death of her daughter, Julie housesits the Mailbu home of her aunt and uncle where she finds herself drawn to Roberto, the handsome man who oversees the lemon orchard and whose daughter was lost but never found.

Sisters Maple and Willow miss each other when Maple starts school, leaving Willow behind at home.

"Jen has dumped Andy, and he's handling the breakup in exactly the way all his friends and family might have expected: very, very badly. Crashing at his mother's house and obsessively photographing his hairline, Andy embraces the rites and rituals of every breakup--the ill-advised decision to move onto a houseboat, the forced merriment of a lads' night out, the accidental late-night text to the ex--all resulting in a never-ending shame spiral. Even...

Even though he brings exotic gifts home when he returns, a young girl misses her father, who travels around the world as a photojournalist.