It’s been a year since church music director, Miriam Tedesco, lost her husband and twin teenagers in a tragic car accident. She’s been doing her best to heal from this unfathomable tragedy when an automated delivery of birthday flowers from her dead husband throws her for a loop. After an embarrassing incident during a church service, she decides to take a road trip her twins had planned for their parents before they died. She needs some alone time to reflect on what she’s lost and gather the strength to move on. Because music was such an important part of their family life, she brings along her husband’s guitar, her daughter’s cello and her son’s unfinished piano sonata.

On her first stop in West Virginia, she meets a pregnant teenager named Dicey. A quick lift soon turns into a cautious connection which blossoms into a lovely friendship. Dicey is a great character—smart, spunky and full of life, despite her worrying cough and difficulty breathing. As they make stops across the county guided by the Tedesco twins video app, including Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado and New Mexico, Miriam’s concern for Dicey’s health grows. As a doctor, I should have figured out what was going on with Dicey, but I was so drawn into the road trip scenery and the developing friendship that I failed to connect the dots.

Miriam uses her experiences on the trip and her newfound connection to Dicey to process her grief and begin to heal. Basi does a beautiful job incorporating Miriam’s love of music into the story, showing how integral it can be to the healing process. You might think a story about such an unthinkable loss would be a depressing downer, but this lovely debut is tender, meaningful and full of hope. I loved every scenic stop on this unforgettable journey.