These companion novels -- by turns touching, compassionate and humorous -- tell the stories of Jack and Brenda Bowman. In all the years of their marriage they have hardly ever been apart.

Brenda, now forty-years-old, is about to take her first trip alone. Vulnerable, in a strange city, she is also ready to grasp whatever experiences come her way. Back home in Chicago, Jack faces his own crisis. Immobilised by self-doubt, he begins to question his worth and the value of his work as a historian. Suddenly, in that one week, his world falls apart.