For Las Vegas widow Naomi, memories of a Pennsylvania Dutch childhood are an ache from the distant past, a painful memory of abandoned roots and lost connections. She has long since reconciled herself to the shattered dreams that had enticed her from her heritage and now simply lives in a tiny apartment, thick with loneliness and regret. Her sole consolation is her daughter-in-law Ruth.

But when hard living claims both of her boys, the two women turn Naomi's creaky Impala eastward in a desperate, last-chance bid for hope and meaning. Thus begins a cross-country odyssey that brings her home to her old farm in Lancaster County--and to the values and rhythms of a life once spurned. Although the East is foreign territory, Ruth also finds a home here among the slow and authentic cadences of Pennsylvania farm country. And she finds love...