Asked to write a story set during the Second World War and certain she lacks the necessary detachment to fictionalise her own experience, Esther turns to long-standing friend Dodie to ask for her side of the letters they exchanged during the war. Dodie's answer brings with it not only their wartime correspondence, but also material that threatens revelations to well-kept family secrets. What began as the story of a friendship becomes much more than that as piecing their story together, Esther catches herself wondering what it was friends and family fought for.