Novel centers on Ivadoile Spears, aged ninety-two, who was widowed early and has run a boarding house on Cape Breton for many years in the splendid home left to her by her doctor husband. We muse with her over the turns her life has taken -- the characters who stayed with her between sea-voyages, the blood on her hands at far too young an age. Ivadoile now pauses to listen to the fat bird sing in her 'Secret Garden' and reminisces about the thorns and roses in her long life.