The sibling rivalry between twelve-year-old Megin and her older brother Greg intensifies after she ruins his science project and he retaliates by throwing her favorite hockey stick into the pond.

While spending Christmas at their grandparents' farm, Lily becomes convinced that her younger brother Liam is right about White Cow being lonely and helps him seek a companion for her, leaving little time for Christmas preparations or reading.

When, after a four-year absence, seventeen-year-old Squid returns to her childhood home on a remote lighthouse island off British Columbia with her young daughter in tow, she and her parents try to come to terms with each other and the painful events of the past, especially the death of her older brother.