Aisling Gayle, a young schoolteacher in 1960s Ireland, spends her life pleasing her philandering husband Oliver, and her pious mother Maggie, and worrying about her brother and sister. When her wedding anniversary reveals Oliver's latest infidelity, she decides to escape for the summer, accompanying her parents to Lake Savannah in Upstate New York. Here she meets reclusive artist Jameson Carroll and his teenage son Thomas, and finds herself in a once-in-a-lifetime, passionate affair. As her return to Ireland and Oliver looms, can Aisling find the courage, at long last, to please herself?