The Portrait

Wealthy American housewife Mary Morgan takes her bullied son George out of school for home education,including a trip to Southern Africa. Whilst in Mozambique George is bitten by a mosquito which crawls through a hole in his net and dies of malaria. After his funeral at home Mary feels a compulsion to return to Africa where she meets English woman Martha O'Connell,whose 24 year old son Ben, a teacher with voluntary service overseas,has also died of malaria. Ben gave his net to one of his pupils,believing adults cannot catch malaria. The two women are shocked to see the high death rate caused by the disease and,whilst Martha stays in Africa as a voluntary helper,Mary petitions the American government to change things. Martha turns up at Mary's house unannounced and,helped by Mary's ex-diplomat father,they address a senate committee on health spending,persuading them to do more to combat malaria. They meet with some success though a coda states that much more can be done.

Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.

Years after a pandemic wipes out most of the female population, a father struggles to shield his daughter from a dangerous and predatory world.