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Michelle, played by Emmy-nominated Marin Hinkle, is a highly respected, workaholic surgeon hell-bent on precision for both her pro bono pediatric cases and ageless rich women. Her warm and honest connection to her husband, Jacob, becomes fraught when the chemo treating Michelle’s aggressive lung cancer fails. Jacob insists that Michelle try another drug. But she’s depleted from managing devastating side effects and wants to stop chemo altogether so that she can feel better – even if temporarily – and complete the last of her series of surgeries on 12-year-old Isabella.

Michelle’s work is her life force, but Jacob can’t understand this. He also can’t understand why Michelle would ask, of all people, her old medical school boyfriend, Earl, now a hospice nurse, to help her decide whether or not to end chemo. But Michelle is the patient, so her wishes trump all.

As Michelle’s health declines, Earl becomes more of a presence in their lives, a presence that is sometimes soothing and instructive, occasionally funny and often a direct blow to Jacob’s guardrails against his terrible grief—the primacy of his connection to Michelle and his capacity to manage her care.

Illuminating and softening this triangular tension is perceptive, witty Drey, Isabella’s older sister, who is hired part-time to shop and cook for Michelle and Jacob. Then there’s Beatrice, the by-the-book and insanely talkative palliative care nurse whose annoying presence helps Jacob see clearly what Michelle needs: to be surrounded by her chosen loved ones. By the end of We’re All Here, Jacob and Earl have become unwilling allies in helping Michelle live the life she wants even as she plans her “good death.”