Fatherless golden high school boy Charlie St. Cloud had a golden future, handsome, popular and admitted to Stanford on a scholarship, even recruited for a prestigious yacht sailing team. But shortly after graduating, Charlie feels existentially guilty about the death of his doting, beloved kid brother Sam whom he was driving to a playmate when a crashing car killed the junior. Charlie pledges to continue the baseball practice he promised to continue until entering Stanford, which he now ditches fro a menial job as graveyard keeper, while their mother shamelessly moved out of state, and tends to the grave of his Vietnam-killed former school buddy Sully, the second ghost who binds his sole to their beach home town. He's finally tempted to start living his own life again when he meets a female sailor his age about to embark on a transatlantic voyage and spends a ho night, but still can't 'leave Sam'. Only when he hears the authorities give up searching for her, having gone missing at sea during a storm, he misses a 'practice' at the beach when the morning canon is fired to sail hoping to save her life.