Seventeen years ago Camille, a gallery owner, and Grace, a civil servant, made a verbal adoption agreement: Grace would raise Camille's son Christopher with the provision that all three live in close proximity, and that the existence of the arrangement be kept from the child forever. This triangle changes drastically when Christopher, now a heterosexual teenager, becomes HIV-positive through sex and drugs and is thrown into maturity much too early. Camille lives her life in the New York art world, and poets and writers regularly gather at her apartment to read their work. The poets' voices echoing across the common courtyard to Chris become the continuous physical bridge between their lives. Via courtyard windows and the resonance of sound, a mystical link forms as Camille steps into a role in his life that she never really wanted nor would have imagined.