An insightful and deeply felt story about a group of women who find a surrogate family in each other.
Anny Butler is a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changed when she met and married Lewis Aiken, and exuberant surgeon 15 years older than Anny.
When they marry, she finds her family. Not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are each other's surrogate family. They are called the Scrubs, because they all, in some way, have the common cord of family.
Instantly upon meeting them at the old beach house on Sullivans Island, which they co-own, Anny knows that she has found home and family. They vow that instead of going into assisted-living facilities, when the time comes they will find a place where they can live together by the sea.
Bad things begin to happen: a hurricane, a fire, deaths - but still the remaining Scrubs cling together. They are nurtured and bolstered by Camilla Curry, the heart and core of their group, always the healer. Anny herself allows Camilla to enfold and nurture her. It is the first time she has felt this kind of love and support.
With the move to a new island retreat comes the beginning of their long-awaited life together. And Anny must learn that everything is not as it seems - that some loves carry a secret and a terrible price.
