Best friends and sisters, the four Padavano girls are seen as inseparable by everyone in their close-knit Italian-American neighbourhood.
 Julia, the eldest, is the 'rocket' of the family - she always has a destination in mind and clear plans for how to get there. Sylvie, the dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book, dreaming of the kind of love you only read about in literature. Cecelia and Emmeline, the twins, are the artist and the caregiver.
 From childhood, the four sisters complete each other. When Julia falls in love with William Waters, a history student and college sports star, she's delighted by the way her plans for adulthood are coming to fruition: a husband, a house, a family of her own.
 But when darkness from William's past begins to block the light of his future, it is Sylvie, not Julia, who becomes his closest confidante - and the ensuing betrayal tears the sisters apart.