Dealing with a parent’s illness can be difficult at any age It is 1967 and twelve year old Ruth Iverson’s world pretty much revolves around her friends, a boy she likes, the Monkees and spending time with her Dad doing special stuff like watching the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup. But she is soon to realize that her mom’s strange behaviour which has become an embarrassment, are symptoms of a disease that will affect the family’s life and possibly Ruth’s future. While she watches major events like the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the birth of Priscilla Presley, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, Ruth faces some major life events of her own and struggles to come to terms with the changes they bring.

Franny Callaghan feels invisible. With a missing mother only seen occasionally who speaks to the family through the closed door of her bedroom or the ensuite bathroom and a father and younger sister, who travel most of the time, home long enough to wash their underwear and re-pack before heading to the next competition so her sister can be an Olympic speed skater, Franny feels alone most of the time.

Franny’s brother died a few years before and is only seen in the photos on the wall. Her family hasn’t spoken of him since the day of his big funeral and all the news coverage of the tragic accident that killed eight members of the Ridgewood High School Orchestra and one of his teachers. And Franny Callaghan remains… just the awkward middle kid in a family that used to look like everyone else’s.

What if Franny just took off to go see her brother’s favorite band on the anniversary of his death? Maybe that would be the jolt her family so badly needed.