On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove--to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife--"that the hours of his life belong to himself alone." In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun, a Little Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child....

Blessed with the face of an angel and the guileless, trusting nature of a child, Grace Brookstein is the prized wife of the king of Wall Street, Lenny Brookstein. Despite the stock market's terrifying collapse, the Brooksteins' glamorous lifestyle of polo tournaments and jets remains untouched--until the day Lenny goes sailing from their Nantucket beach estate and never comes home. When his abandoned yacht is found far out at sea, Grace is devastated....