A journey of love and forgiveness is told with humor, sensitivity, and compassion in this warm family drama When Paulina dies mid-dance, she leaves 12-year-old Zav and seven-year-old Sealie with their loving but unstable father, Hal. The grieving family decides to plant a tree in her memory-a magnolia which, growing along with the children, offers a special place where secrets are whispered and feelings can be confessed. But as the memory tree grows, Hal, bereft and increasingly suspicious of the world, turns to his own brand of salvation to make sense of the voices that bewilder and torment him. Mrs. Mac, housekeeper and second mother since Paulina's death, cooks, cleans, loves, and worries about her "family." She is even more concerned when Hal brings a larger-than-life stranger to the house for a beer; but Pastor Moses B. Washbourne, founder of the Church of the Divine Conflagration and ex-sergeant of the U.S. Army, soon becomes part of the family, with surprising and far-reaching consequences. As the seasons pass, Sealie blossoms into young woman, the apple of Hal's eye, while Zav, having spent his childhood quietly trying to win his father's lost attention, is conscripted for duty in Vietnam. And all the while, the voices continue to murmur poisonous words to Hal who knows he must keep them hidden-until he is persuaded into the most tragic of acts.
