Angie of the Garden is a story about a psychiatrist named Hollis SImms. He is an affable individual who is dedicated to his patients, and his family. Hollis is married to a provocative and welathy woman named Olivia: their irrepressible teenage daughter is named Annabelle. His wife used her considerable resources to purcahse the estate called Fairhaven for them to live on. As a boy Hollis found a diary writtien by a woman named Angie Barton buried in a garden. The journal told of the hardships and deprivations suffered by this woman from Boston as she traveled on the Oregon Trail. She became his first love. One evening as Doctor Simms walked past a garden on the estate he encountered the spirit of Angie Barton. Hollis learns that she worked at Fairhaven as a house servant after returning from the west. he cannot fathom how this adventurous woman could have come to such a station in life. Hollis decided that Angie must have experienced some kind of trauma. During her subsequant appearences he entices her into recounting the long trek westward in order to discover the cause of her malaise. Hollis' obsession with the woman from the past begins to strain his relationships with the living.