This heartwarming story involves three couples whose friendship and mutual respect deepen into a loving family relationship that remains strong through the years despite a few bumps along the way.
Dylan, Steve, and Carl are college friends, all single, who work and play together like brothers. Carl starts a business in Durham, North Carolina; Steve starts a similar business in St. Louis; and Dylan becomes a college professor in St. Louis.
The story initially focuses on Dylan, whose wife left him for a mutual friend after eleven years of marriage. He was extremely depressed, but is cheered by a fellow professor, Ann, who invites him to the St. Louis Zoo with her and her two kids. Dylan and the kids visit and play with the lemurs at the zoo. The kids love the lemurs and are equally enamored with Dylan.
An unexpected cascade of events follows that changes Dylan's life, although he remains in touch with Ann on a platonic basis.
Dylan's plane crashes en route to Durham, where Dylan is sent to facilitate a possible merger between Steve's and Carl's companies.
Dylan meets Tessa, a fellow passenger on the plane. Tessa is a scholar at the Lemur Center at Duke University. Tessa and Dylan begin a romantic relationship.
Tessa's two friends become romantically involved with Dylan's two friends, Carl and Steve, which results in Dylan and Steve relocating to Durham from St. Louis so all three couples could be together.
The couples, all professionals, decide to restore a large house containing separate suites for each couple with common living spaces. Their careers and businesses prosper. Dylan gets to accompany Tessa to Madagascar, where Tessa researches the behavior of lemurs. Then Ann, Dylan's platonic friend in St. Louis, becomes ill and needs help with her two kids. Upon learning of Ann's illness, Tessa and the others relocate Ann and her children to their home. Then Tessa leaves, Ann dies, and Dylan adopts the kids. He loves the kids, and with the support of his friends, he eventually cultivates a successful and lasting relationship with Margo, a victim of domestic violence.
The three couples spend many happy years together raising Ann's children and even vacationing in Madagascar, where they dance with ring-tailed lemurs.
