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Marty Winters' wife is shot in the head while giving a speech at the Seattle Pride celebration. She is rushed to the hospital and a blood clot is removed from her brain. Family members gather to wait and see if she will ever regain consciousness — Marty; their daughter, Marianne; their son, William and his life partner, Jake; and Chloe, their transsexual housemate. Family conversations lead back to old conflicts and to memories of Marty's first wife, Maria, and the night they met at a high school dance in Marty's hometown of Olympia, Washington. It's 1960, and Maria has two steps up on the sexual revolution, and she figures what Marty doesn't know about her other boyfriend won't hurt him. Their marriage comes to a suddenly end when she leaves him with no hint of where she may be. Marty is obsessed with finding Maria, but his obsession leads him to another girl, a girl in a religious commune who goes by the name of Marigold but whose real name is Selena. He marries Selena and takes her back home, and they build what seems to be a happy and normal life ... ...until their son tells them he is gay and until Marty's old friend Chuck, an embittered Vietnam vet, comes back into his life, until they run into trouble with a neo-Nazi group known as The Nation, and finally until Maria returns.
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