Two young girls have been orphaned when their parents die in a tragic fire. With nowhere to turn, they move into their
aunts' decrepid, dark house and soon find they are ostracized for simply being themselves: Sally and Gillian Owens. They live through their early years as the victims of taunts and cold shoulders, until high school. Gillian becomes known for her great beauty and commitment issues. Sally remains focused on school and taking care of the
aunts and the house. The two couldn't be more different, but remain tightly bound until Gillian flees Massachusetts to elope.
As the years go by, Gillian runs through a slew of men while Sally settles into a normal life, married with two daughters. She believes she has finally found normal until her husband is taken by the curse of their family: no man can survive while in love with an Owens woman. Sally is torn apart, barely moving for an entire year, living off the weekly phone calls from her sister Gillian. In an act of desperation, Sally packs up the car with her little girls and moves from the aunts' house to New York and a cozy suburban neighborhood.
Life becomes bearable again until Gillian appears on Sally's doorstep late one night, a cigarette dangling from her lips and a
dead man in her car. Sally soon finds herself burying Jimmy, Gillian's boyfriend, in her backyard and combating the overwhelming effect he has on the women in the neighborhood as he haunts the Owens household. When an officer from Arizona comes poking around looking for Jimmy a year later, Sally decides she must be true to herself and tell him what really happened. She never counted on falling in love with him.
In the end, Sally and Gillian finally find happiness, exorcising Jimmy completely out of their lives and settling down into a semi-normal state of existence, realizing they are not normal and that is what makes them special.