Maggie Barnes has left her journals to her son, Rowland, but he is puzzled by gaps in her accounts, and he turns to his mother's dear friend, Alethea, for help. Rowland reviews memories he shaped as a naive boy, and in the process is forced to admit that he was clueless about much of what was happening around him. Alethea tries to answer Rowland's questions about his mother, but as she does she realizes that she cannot tell Maggie's story without telling her own. The hidden stories Rowland and Alethea resurrect and share with each other change them, and their hearts are opened to a connection that bridges the generations.