Living in rural New South Wales, working-class single mother Rhia is struggling to evade debt collectors and raise three young daughters. The eldest, and hardened beyond her years, Lou blames Rhia for the departure of her father, who walked out 10 months ago and hasn't been seen since. Mother-daughter relations hit bottom when Rhia takes in Doyle, her father in-law, who is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's. Doyle turns Lou's initial hostility around with exciting tales of his South Seas adventures. But coursing deepest in his mind are fractured memories of Annie, his late wife. Before long, Doyle "sees" Annie in Lou and imagines he is courting her all over again.

Natalie and Ross struggle to stay in the middle class in a Melbourne suburb, with their likable son and daughter, 12 and 7. Their lives are upended one August day when Natalie faints during a routine medical checkup: it's an aneurysm followed by major surgery, convalescence, and a doctor's advice to avoid heavy lifting, straining on the toilet, stifled sneezes, and orgasms. Over the next year, we watch the family in vignettes, one each month: domestic frustrations, a tempting colleague, Christmas, a pet fish, a holiday, a church choir and conversations about God, a chicken hawk, a birthday party, football games, and fears that another aneurysm is just a sneeze away.