"Nobody will ever see all the colors. It isn't possible."The result of cheerfully indifferent parenting, the six adult Bannerly siblings are largely self-raised, and mostly successfully so. With one exception. Youngest sister Bertie has spent a lifetime attempting to escape the confines of an unconventional family existence. At age 28, she finally succeeds, in the worst way possible.Now her twin brother Trace is left to ferret out the secrets of a sister he never quite understood while he wrestles with his own feelings of resentment toward both Bertie and their parents. At the same time, he faces a series of changes and upheavals in his own life. It's then that the sister with whom he'd never been able to connect suddenly reappears.A ghost? Or an hallucination, the side effect of a nasty head injury? Trace can't be sure, nor does Bertie herself seem to have an explanation. She appears in random, unexpected moments, as real as the world around him, to share memories, revisit old grudges and then to vanish once more, in keeping with familiar old habits.It is Trace's own impending fatherhood as well as a brush with death that finally allows him the perspective to see his parents and siblings, including wayward Bertie, in a different light, accepting them for who they are rather than who he would like them to be.