An Indian doctor in rural Tennessee, Abraham Verghese, who treats the first AIDS patients diagnosed there. The victims include a conservative Christian couple who have hid their disease for fear of rejection, as well a trucker's wife who has contracted the disease from her husband. Obviously, the disease causes severe turmoil for these people, who have to come to grips not only with the disease, but how they contracted it and how they will be viewed once people know they have it.