Margaret Crane is a woman others would envy, with her comfortable home, teaching career, loving husband, and three beautiful children. Nina Keller, the orphaned cousin she and her husband, Adam, had raised as their own daughter, is a promising young decorator in New York. It should be a time of challenge, of rewards, of contentment. And yet...Adam is working too late, too hard at the office. He seems distracted, worried about his job. He and Margaret have less and less time together. Perhaps it's just the uncertainty, the rumored takeover of his company. No other possibility enters Margaret's mind. Then she meets Randi, the Other Woman. Meanwhile, Nina is reveling in New York. She thinks she's found Mr. Right in Keith, a brilliant, handsome investment banker who may not be all that he seems. As Nina clings to stolen weekends with Keith, Margaret plays dutiful wife, trying to ignore the warning signs of her failing marriage. And as both Nina and Margaret are faced with their own heartbreaking choices, a rift develops between the two women who have loved each other as mother, daughter, friends. Promises - between lovers, husbands and wives, friends and family members - are at the heart of Belva Plain's stunning story of passion and betrayal, of dreams shattered and reborn by the awesome power of hope and love.