Charlie is a grumpy old bastard plagued by a past he refuses to relinquish. With the loss of his wife thirty years prior, which robbed him of the family he dearly wanted, his constant muttering and imagined conversations, exacerbate his delusions.

He now lives by the bay to placate her wishes, a place he resents. He hates the beach. And people. And children. And dogs. But they keep coming in droves to picnic in the reserve between him and the water. Alone on his verandah, Charlie’s days are a bitter dance with his memories, fuelled by the mysterious absence of his daughter.

Naomi, scarred by her father’s rages and the enigma of her mother’s death as a young child, fled to find her own life. For twenty years, a wall of silence has stood between them. As she cautiously re-enters Charlie’s life, she unwittingly stirs a fragile ecosystem of grief, fantasy, and long-buried secrets.

When Charlie finally relents, it shifts his perception of the life he has always wished for. Can this fractured family find solace in their shared sorrow, or will the ghosts of the past consume them both when the true source of his grieving is exposed?