Shelby Lazarus has been estranged from her family for years, but when her father and stepmother are injured in a car accident he returns home to Long Island. All is well, but while she`s there, her sister Lauren asks her to be a surrogate mother and conceive a child for her and her husband. The husband then leaves Lauren, who gets involved with a man who doesn`t want children. Pregnant, Shelby looks up her old childhood friend (and lifelong crush), Mattie, who is unhappily married. All through the book, Shelby`s mother, who died when Shelby was 10, provides commentary on the action from her perch in the afterlife.