Simone is thirty-eight, a district judge whose husband, Donald, is on the verge of bankruptcy and breakdown. Each morning she leaves him with their two young boys while she drives to court to assess evidence and pass judgment. In her public life she must "make sense of things that really don't make sense at all." In her private life she struggles to control chaos and mounting debt, with only an early-morning cold swim to keep her sane.

One such morning a letter arrives, addressed to Simone and postmarked New York. Someone she has tried to forget has not forgotten her. Simone's private history is about to collide with her public world.