Young Daniel's addiction is pushing him fast into a downward spiral and wreaking havoc in the rest of the McGale family. He has run away and his father, Traveler McGale, badly wants to run after him, despite being advised not to by his wife, his best friend and the headmaster at Daniel's school. But Traveler has been moving through his own life shackled with memories of loss. Loss of a father who was never there. Loss through war of a stolen youth, of friends and of faith in the future. And more loss is coming his way; but he is determined now to hold fast to what he still has, including his addicted teen age son. He will find him and 'set him straight.' As he sets on a fear-laden search for seventeen year old Daniel, he comes face to face with his own troubled past, his own fears and his ongoing sparring with an inscrutable god.

Sometimes in life, however, a man begins a search only, at the end, to find ---- not what he was looking for ---- but something else, something precious and totally unexpected.