When a crow swoops down on a smoky August afternoon and starts speaking with her, mythology professor Catherine Moss assumes someone is playing a joke—and she's not happy about it. Stuck in the anger stage of grief ever since the disappearance of her twelve-year-old daughter, Sierra, five years earlier Catherine is not one to tolerate tricksters. But crows excel in facial recognition, and Catherine suffers from face blindness: an inability to recognize even familiar people. Soon this crow—whom Catherine dubs Veronica—is serving as her support animal, perching on her shoulder to whisper the names of students and colleagues in her ear. She also introduces Catherine to her other human friend, an unhoused young artist named Mari. Together, Veronica and Mari lead Catherine to confront her deepest fear: not that Sierra is dead, but that her daughter may one day return radically changed and emotionally damaged. Set amid the yellowed skies and swirling ash of a California city during fire season, Catherine Over Water addresses the near-unbearable task of dwelling in limbo.