Ragged Islands — Don Hannah

It is September 2001, and eighty-five-year old Susan Ann Roberts lies dying in a Toronto hospital when she resolves to return to the places in the Maritimes that defined her as a young girl, wife and mother. When she was born, Susan Ann was given away by her parents to be raised by relatives. Although she vowed that her own children would never feel unwanted, she fears that her son and daughter -- hovering near her bedside -- are more put out than caring. Meg, her granddaughter, is also nearby, but her dearest grandson Tommy is stuck in New York -- something is happening there, planes and buildings, people falling from the sky. . .

Susan Ann begins her magical journey at the bottom of the laneway that leads to the family farm where she spent her childhood summers. Accompanied by a strange little dog from her distant past, she travels along old roads, visiting the lost houses of her memory, and meeting people from her life, among them, her birth mother as a young girl. As she approaches Ragged Islands, Nova Scotia, and the house she shared with her husband -- she continues to ponder the question of her birth: Why was she given away, especially when siblings born both earlier and later were kept? And when her late husband Jamie whispers to her, "I miss you terribly and am counting the days," why does she feel so bereft?