Lise makes maps of places that used to exist and lives with a man she doesn't love. Her mother, Vee, pines for the husband she lost so many years ago, and can't stop thinking of the place she grew up and left behind on purpose. Things come to a head when Vee finds a package on her doorstep, a box of mementos that she buried twenty-five years ago at her husband's grave. But who would be cruel enough to dig it up and send it back to her so many years later? And why did she bury it in the first place? The mystery is slowly revealed as Vee drifts in and out of memories--her childhood in the North during the 1950s and 1960s, her love affair with a charming Qu b cois man, a family wrenched apart by pride, a loss that unhinged her--and as Lise pieces together the puzzle of her mother's past in an attempt not only to understand her mother's life, but also her own. Family secrets, lost love, and memories that anchor a life--Fathom Lines explores what keeps us from knowing the ones we love best.