Plot summary

Having lived in his family home on an island in Puget Sound, teacher and aspiring artist Emilia Ramírez Stone breaks up with jeweler Benedict Stone on the cusp of their tenth wedding anniversary, Emilia who could not stand the feeling of being a failure in trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child, exacerbated by the pressure placed on her unwittingly by Ben in his seeming inability to embrace change. Emilia turned to art as a means to cope. Ben unexpectedly receives a visit from his sixteen year old niece, Gemma Stone, who he didn't even know existed in he being estranged from her father/his younger brother, Charlie Stone, who left his life completely twenty years ago when he turned eighteen following an argument between the two of them, something about which Ben never talks. Ben raised Charlie following the death of their parents on a gem collecting trip, Ben having taken over the family jewelry store business despite having no interest in it up to that point. The story Gemma tells is that Charlie, living in New Mexico, knows that she came for this summer long visit, and that she cannot contact him not knowing his telephone number in having lost her cell phone. As Ben tries to discover the true and complete story about Gemma's visit, which includes trying to get a hold of Charlie based solely on what little information Gemma has provided, Gemma, who embraces the stories behind the gems with which Ben works much like her paternal grandparents did, may just be the impetus Ben didn't know he needed to change and win back Emilia, that is unless he is too late in the seeming romantic interest Lawrence Donnington, the curator of her first solo art show, has shown in her.

Having lived in his family home on an island in Puget Sound, teacher and aspiring artist Emilia Ramírez Stone breaks up with jeweler Benedict Stone on the cusp of their tenth wedding anniversary, Emilia who could not stand the feeling of being a failure in trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child, exacerbated by the pressure placed on her unwittingly by Ben in his seeming inability to embrace change. Emilia turned to art as a means to cope. Ben unexpectedly receives a visit from his sixteen year old niece, Gemma Stone, who he didn't even know existed in he being estranged from her father/his younger brother, Charlie Stone, who left his life completely twenty years ago when he turned eighteen following an argument between the two of them, something about which Ben never talks. Ben raised Charlie following the death of their parents on a gem collecting trip, Ben having taken over the family jewelry store business despite having no interest in it up to that point. The story Gemma tells is that Charlie, living in New Mexico, knows that she came for this summer long visit, and that she cannot contact him not knowing his telephone number in having lost her cell phone. As Ben tries to discover the true and complete story about Gemma's visit, which includes trying to get a hold of Charlie based solely on what little information Gemma has provided, Gemma, who embraces the stories behind the gems with which Ben works much like her paternal grandparents did, may just be the impetus Ben didn't know he needed to change and win back Emilia, that is unless he is too late in the seeming romantic interest Lawrence Donnington, the curator of her first solo art show, has shown in her.

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