To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday 1996

On her birthday, Gillian Lewis dies after a fall from the mast of a yacht during a family outing, and the tragedy reshapes the lives of those left behind. Grief-stricken, David Lewis converts their Nantucket summer cottage into a permanent home, spending long days on the beach and reaching out to Gillian’s spirit, all the while unwittingly pulling distant from his daughter, Rachel Lewis. The house becomes a quiet shrine to memory, and the border between the living and the imagined blurs as David clings to a ritual of keeping Gillian close.

Two years later, Esther Wheeler [Kathy Baker] and her husband Paul Wheeler arrive for a weekend visit, with Esther insisting on bringing her friend Kevin Dollof in hopes that David will move on and form a new bond. Yet David remains stubbornly rooted in the past, and the weekend unfolds with a formal dinner where Esther accuses him of retreating from life and Rachel’s needs. Paul tries to temper the tension and steer the gathering toward a calmer path, but the quiet is fragile, and the family dynamics grow more tangled as the day wears on.

Afterward, the tension intensifies as David confronts the sense that Gillian’s memory is eclipsing reality. He tells Gillian’s ghost that the visiting relatives’ arrival—plus the pressure on him to “move on”—is weighing on him, and Gillian’s presence reappears to remind him that Rachel must come first. When Rachel reappears in the house, she remains withdrawn, and Esther’s involvement becomes more of a concern than a comfort, especially as a court date for the custody of Rachel looms. Paul, sensing deeper trouble, pushes to protect the girl while wrestling with his own feelings about the strange bond David maintains with Gillian’s memory.

The weekend also spirals into social strain. David throws himself into a sand sculpture contest he has prepared for weeks, hoping to reclaim some sense of purpose, while Rachel’s friend Cindy Bayles encourages her to dress provocatively, sparking discomfort in Paul who worries about the boundaries of propriety and desire. David’s discomfort grows when he witnesses Rachel being ogled, and he instinctively moves to shield her. A heat‑related episode fractures the group further when David, thinking he sees Gillian in a stranger, collapses and then regains consciousness with a surprising awareness: he has won the competition, but the victory feels hollow because the core relationship—his bond with Rachel—needs a steadier, more honest path.

As the weekend draws to a close, Esther and Paul confront the fragility of their own marriage, their jealousy and competing loyalties laid bare by the tension around Gillian’s memory and David’s devotion to Rachel. Esther’s plan to secure a stronger place in Rachel’s life collides with Paul’s insistence on honesty and boundaries, and Kevin becomes a conduit for difficult conversations rather than a cure for hurt. When Rachel and her ferry ride away with Kevin, she pauses to tell David she isn’t ready to leave him—yet she cannot escape the sense that Gillian’s ghost will always hover near. In the final moments, David chooses to stay one more day to board up the house, understanding that he can be a loving, attentive father to Rachel without betraying Gillian’s memory, and he begins to imagine a future where memory and family can coexist in a healthier balance.