Fiction. Jesse McKnight wakes to find that his wife has vanished with only a vague note declaring that she has done so in search of "something better." Her departure thrusts Jesse into the reluctant role of single parent, and his clumsy attempts to bridge years of emotional absence only further alienates his three children. His artistic sixteen-year-old son, Cole, is ashamed of his father's inability to affect a more promising future and blames him for his mother's unlikely decision to abandon him and his sisters to his inept care. Five-year-old sister, Sky is afraid of her father, and will not so much as speak. Only eleven-year-old Katie, a tough realist with a soft spot for broken things, has always tried to believe in him. It's Katie's dream of owning a horse, coupled with Jesse's imagined redemption that leads him to purchase, sight unseen from a brutal owner, a mustang mare. Upon delivery, the terrified animal crashes through a hastily constructed corral and escapes into the nearby national forest. Jesse vows to a broken-hearted Katie that he, with the help of his oldest friend, a paraplegic, and his lesbian neighbors, will recapture the mare. Thus begins Jesse's journey to fatherhood through an emotional landscape strewn with joyful discovery, comic ineptitude, and unforeseen tragedy.