Bob Comet lived a quiet and seemingly unremarkable life, working in a library and retiring, but spending his free time mostly reading. However, one chance encounter changed everything. He became a volunteer at a senior center, relearning how to network and communicate. And along the way, a wave of memories washed over him. Bob, along with the reader, returns to the late 1950s, when his one true love came into his life, and to the mid-1940s, when, as a boy, he ran away from home for a few days. And the past helps him understand his present self and the world around him.