Eleven-year-old Ben and his older stepbrother Dustin have never been close. In fact, they could not be more different. Ben's always had an easy relationship with Dustin's dad, Lyle; Dustin prefers to hold himself sullenly "outside touching distance." So when first Ben's restless mother, then Dustin, decide to leave the only place he has ever called home, Ben refuses to follow. Now Dustin has been in a diving accident, and Ben and Lyle must go to him. For Ben, the journey brings the chance to face his long-absent mother, and to confront Dustin, an elusive figure he has alternately worshipped and resented, whose soul is more troubled than Ben can understand.

In a first-person narrative addressed to his stepbrother, this is the story of the difficult choices and complicated relationships that make up all families.