Willa does fall in love, but it isn't at all the way she dreamed it would be.
And just what is extraordinary? Willa and twin brother Nicky's mother is going to have a baby-how ordinary. Their friend Horace's mother has left to "seek her fortune." That, Willa thinks, is extraordinary.
Willa is on the verge of learning something important. And by the end of the long summer, Willa, Nicky, and Horace each do something extraordinary and unforgettable.
She spends the quiet mornings standing in an ivory dress, certain that Horace's painter father is the solemn true love she has been watching for. Across the yard, Nicky sketches the hidden roots of the garden and studies the dying apple tree. The great-aunts next door warned that its brittle branches were strictly forbidden, an announcement Nicholas treats as an open invitation.