A younger Matthew Diggerson, two years full-time at Ocean View College and five years married to Anna, witnesses a suicide via the towering Bay Bridge right after the jumper has whispered something strange to Digger before the fall. Digger investigates the suicide (Was it assisted? Is more to come?), attempts to manage the burgeoning workload of a full-time professor, and tries to civilize two feral cats, even as his own marriage falls inexorably apart.