Erin Marinelli has her work cut out for her when she arrives at her late grandmother's Wisconsin home to prepare for an estate sale. But sifting through the overwhelming collection, she finds a yellowed envelope of old photographs. In one, taken almost a century ago, a beautiful woman is seated with a young boy who looks uncannily like Erin's five-year-old autistic son, Will. Intrigued, Erin looks further into her family's history. The boy in the picture, John Cartwright, was deaf. He and his mother, Amelia, are presumed to have drowned together in Geneva Lake. Erin delves even deeper into the past - unearthing a story that is both heartbreaking and surprising.