"Single, unfulfilled and well into middle age, long-troubled Charlotte Lansing desperately reaches for love and acceptance. When she announces her engagement to an unemployed morphine addict, her family falls into a tailspin. Her mother is determined to prevent disaster, her father seeks to mend the growing chasm, and her sister stubbornly hopes that their sibling bonds can keep Charlotte safe. But Charlotte resists all this because she thinks she is finally happy. Ultimately, all her loved ones can do is watch as Charlotte disappears, slowly and inevitably, into her new husband' s illness."-- Provided by publisher.