The Sunday Potluck Club

New friends can be found in unexpected places. For Bridget and Amy, that place was the cancer ward of an Anchorage hospital. Now, as each struggles to overcome loss, they lean on each other for support-sharing suppers, laughter and tears. Bridget and Amy aren't about to let hardship knock them down - Bridget plans to return to her veterinarian school studies, Amy to her position as a second-grade teacher - but neither feels quite ready. And so the Sunday Potluck Club is born, a way for Bridget, Amy, and other women who have lost a loved one to find solace and understanding.

In the rapidly blooming courtyard beneath Bridget Moore's new Anchorage apartment, the signs are unmissable: spring has come. As she unpacks boxes, Bridget hopes that she too is moving forward. With her tight schedule - college, working as a vet tech, volunteering at the animal shelter, caring for her beloved dogs - Bridget strives to keep too busy to register the pain of losing her mother just months ago. Bridget's new neighbor, Wesley, also seems to be running from something - quite literally. He and his two energetic dogs jog by twice a day.

Nichole Peterson increasingly believes in rituals, routines, and checklists - especially after almost losing her father to cancer two years ago. Now she lives in constant fear of saying the wrong thing, knowing any conversation could be their last. She met her best friends - and their cherished canine companions - at the hospital right before each lost a parent. As the only member of the Sunday Potluck Club with a surviving loved one, she has a hard time opening up to her friends about the struggles that come with remission.