Thinking that Ruth's frequent request to "go to the water" amounts to a longing to return to her happy youth, Peg has brought her ailing mother to Nova Scotia. Peg sees the old house by the sea as refuge, a place to begin again with 14-year-old Zoe. However, when Ruth enters the house the women who once inhabited it play out their stories. In the end, Ruth chooses grace over pain, thereby offering Peg and Zoe a small beginning.
