A divorcee mother travels beyond the confines of her life in search of herself. The main character in the novel The Absent Woman, suffering from an unhappy marriage, leaves her family in Seattle and travels north to live alone, study piano with a gifted musician, and discover the significance of one of the rooms she sublets from the absent woman. In the small fishing town of Hilliard, Washington, at the edge of Puget Sound, Virginia Johnstone learns to live a life quite different from the one she has been accustomed to. In so doing, she retains her relationship with her sons and solves a personal dilemma.