Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character - a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice", but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a critical time in her life. When we first meet her Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens on the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason. A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She's about to fall in love for the first time.