Annie returns from work complaining of a headache and collapses on the kitchen floor from a sudden aneurysm.

Bill returns home in tears after the hospital, and Ali understands without being told that her mother has died.

Overwhelmed with grief, Bill isolates in the bedroom while Dora and Kathy take over all funeral arrangements.

Annemarie arrives early at the funeral home and views Annie's body alone, secretly placing a bottle of rosé in the casket.

At the viewing, Jamie falls asleep on Liz Donahue's lap, and Ali notices the woman calls Bill by the nickname "Billy."

The family buries Annie in a graveside service, and mourners gather at the Browns' home for a reception afterward.

Bill returns to work as a plumber and keeps Annie's cell phone plugged in beside his bed at night.

Ali begins regular counseling sessions with Miss Cruz, her school counselor, to process her grief.

Green View nursing home gathers staff and residents to honor Annie with a memorial service and a planted weeping willow tree.

Ali sees Bill kissing Liz Donahue under the moonlight outside their home and is devastated by how quickly he has moved on.

On the drive home from sports camp, Ant breaks down sobbing and tells Bill he needs his mother and fears Bill will remarry.

Tom discovers Annemarie's infidelity during her relapse and leaves her.

At Ali's birthday party, Dora and Annemarie argue bitterly, and Bill announces to his mother that he is buying a new home.

The entire Brown family, including Annemarie, gathers at Annie's grave to honor her on the first anniversary of her death.

Bill ends his relationship with Liz and asks Miss Cruz on a date as the family prepares to move to a new home.

After Annie Brown collapses and dies from a sudden aneurysm, her husband Bill and four children are plunged into overwhelming grief that reshapes every part of their lives. Bill shuts down emotionally and leans on his mother and sister-in-law to handle the funeral while his children struggle to understand what has happened. As the months pass, the family tries to return to normal life, but Annie's absence creates a hole that no one can fill, and Bill's budding romance with his old girlfriend Liz deepens the children's pain. Annemarie, Annie's best friend, spirals into a relapse that costs her her marriage while Bill's youngest son Ant finally breaks under the weight of unprocessed grief. A bitter birthday party confrontation forces Bill to assert his independence and commit to a fresh start for the family. By the first anniversary of Annie's death, the family has survived their hardest year and takes tentative steps toward a new life together.

The Brown family's first year without Annie.

Alone in the dark house while waiting for news, Ant asks Ali whether their mother is going to die.

Kathy explains to Ali for the first time that her mother died of a brain aneurysm.

At the post-funeral reception, Dora's friends gossip about Liz Donahue while Annemarie listens from the periphery with disgust.

Sitting alone in her car after the reception, Annemarie nearly relapses but hears Annie's voice and pulls herself back from the edge.

Annemarie takes Ali grocery shopping and restocks the Browns' empty refrigerator, trying to fill the domestic gap Annie left behind.

Annemarie accidentally sits in Annie's chair at the family dinner table, and Bill coldly tells her he can care for his children alone.

Bill responds to a plumbing call at one of Liz's property listings, and she invites him in to sit and rest over coffee.

After the nursing home memorial, Ant punches his father and shouts that he appreciated everything the residents said about Annie.

Annemarie attends an NA meeting and discovers a prescription pill bottle in her bag while sharing her recovery story with the group.

Jenny's family abruptly moves away, and Ali never gets the chance to say goodbye to her closest friend.

Ant skips school and is found sobbing alone beside Annie's memorial willow tree at Green View nursing home.

Miss Cruz meets with Bill privately and assigns him emotional homework: to begin talking about Annie openly with his children.

Bill covers the refrigerator with photos of Annie and shares a funny story about her strong opinions on grilled cheese with the kids.

Ali's classmates vote to elect her class president.

Annemarie arrives with her newborn daughter Hope and helps the family tenderly sort through and divide Annie's belongings.

While the Brown family navigates Annie's loss in the most visible ways, a set of quieter but equally important events drives the story forward beneath the surface. From the immediate night of Annie's death through the painful months that follow, each character makes small decisions and discoveries that gradually shift the direction of their grief. Annemarie fights a constant internal battle against relapse, reaching out for support even as she edges closer to the edge, while Ali quietly carries the weight of the household and her friendship with the troubled Jenny. Bill slowly recognizes his own emotional failures as a father and begins to correct course with the help of Miss Cruz's guidance. These moments of reckoning, small confrontations, and acts of care accumulate into the foundation on which the family's healing is eventually built. The pool closes with Annemarie's return as a new mother, completing the circle of loss and renewal that Annie set in motion.

The quiet moments that shaped a year of grief.

Ali calls 911 while Bill carries Annie from the kitchen to the living room, and paramedics arrive and take her away on a stretcher.

Ali cries for the first time during the funeral viewing when her friend Jenny comes through the condolence line.

Annemarie and Bill stand together weeping at Annie's casket, and Annemarie pledges to care for the family because Annie once saved her life.

Outside the funeral home, Ant asks Ali what happens now that their mother is dead, and Ali says their father will care for them.

A nursing home resident tells Ali that Annie once secretly sheltered a young friend in an empty room at Green View.

Ali meets with Miss Cruz and reveals that her father cries in the shower, Jaimie wets the bed, and the family is not fine.

Annemarie revisits the Mennonite community and then drives to her former drug dealer's house, but a mother and two children now live there.

Ali's sleepover at Jenny's house is abruptly cut short when Jenny's father returns home early, sending Jenny into a desperate panic.

Ali sneaks back to Jenny's house and sees Jenny's father enter her room and get into her bed through the window.

While seeking a new prescription for more pills, Annemarie undergoes a blood test that reveals she is pregnant.

At Ali's birthday party the hamsters die, Dora calls Annemarie a junkie, and the gathering collapses into open conflict.

Ali privately visits Miss Cruz outside school hours and pays with her birthday money to confide what she witnessed at Jenny's house.

Annemarie confesses her relapse and pregnancy to Ali and reveals that Tom has left her after discovering her infidelity.

Ant gets glasses for the first time, and his schoolwork and behavior improve significantly afterward.

Left alone in the old house on moving day, Bill opens Annie's hope chest and finds her wedding gown and wedding night lingerie inside.

Beneath the surface of the Brown family's grief lies a series of pivotal revelations and decisive moments that permanently alter the course of each character's life. From the night of Annie's death through the months that follow, characters discover truths about themselves, each other, and the people they thought they knew. Ali pieces together a disturbing reality about her best friend Jenny, while Annemarie confronts the full cost of losing the one person who kept her sober. Each character reaches a breaking point that forces them to look honestly at who they have become without Annie. The pregnancy that transforms Annemarie, the glasses that unlock Ant's potential, and Bill's solitary final moment in the old house all represent the quiet but irreversible turning points that close one chapter and open another. Together these events reveal how grief, when fully faced, can become the foundation for something new.