For many urban dwellers, daily life includes walking the dog surrounded by strangers and neighbors for whom you have only a passing acquaintance, whose personal stories you can only guess, imagine, or project upon them through the various waves hello, small talk about the the weather, or random gestures of kindness. What happens when you cross through the threshold of strangers, into their apartment? What stories have they been keeping behind their doors, no one ever sees? Frank Gromke has kept his family and his Holocaust past from his neighbor Harriet, until his son Aaron is forced to come live with him after a motorcycle accident. Living with Frank’s trauma, miraculous survival, and relentless will to overcome his pain, has overshadowed Aaron’s ability to experience his own emotions, loss, and suffering. When Harriet accepts an invitation for a cup of afternoon tea with Frank, she and her dog, along with a food delivery man named Douglas, become the catalyst for a reckoning between a lost son, with his heroic father.

Sometimes being witnessed by strangers is the only way a family can witness each other, tell the stories they long to tell, and be heard.