4Four years have gone by since fourteen-year-old Annie Leigh Howard joyfully welcomed her father back from World War II. Life isn't back to normal quite as Annie once hoped, though. It is now January 1950 and the Cold War has begun to grip the nation. The family has finally settled in after a major move from Seattle to Tacoma, but Annie's once outgoing and gregarious father, now blind from the war, is retreating from the outside world.

Annie is determined to help her father once again embrace life. In the midst of her efforts, she meets Elisabet Vonderveld and her handsome twin brother, Johannes, refugees from Holland. Through them, she comes to see the world differently -- to understand the nature of sacrifice, and the truth that loss in wartime is not limited to those that fight on the battlefield.