In upstate New York in the 1850s Abigail begins a new year on the rural farm where she lives with her husband Dyer. As Abigail considers the year to come through her journal entries we experience the marked contrast between her deliberate stoic manner and her unraveling complex emotions. Spring arrives and Abigail meets Tallie an emotionally frank and arrestingly beautiful newcomer renting a neighboring farm with her husband Finney. The two strike up a tentative relationship filling a void in their lives which neither knew existed.