The summer days when the first husband of the mother circled in a glider in the sky over the Rhön belong to a bygone era. He has fallen, and the narrator is left without memories of her father. A lonely castle becomes a refuge, not only for the mother, who supports her children through weaving, but also for uprooted people from the surrounding area. The harshness of life does not seem to embitter the unusually self-assured woman, who has also had to cope with the death of two children. She knows how to seize her happiness wherever it presents itself. Lovers come and go when their time is up. A student, actually the lover of her friend Claire. An American soldier who came with the liberators; after a few months, his unit is withdrawn - a farewell to a love that remained an unfulfilled promise, one of many in this woman's life.