Ever since he was expelled for his treatment of a classmate with a facial deformity, Julian has struggled to fit in at his new school. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother finally reveals her own story of courage of her youth in Nazi-occupied France, where a classmate shelters her from mortal danger.

An odyssey through time and memory, centered around a place in New England where—from wilderness, and then, later, from a home—love, loss, struggle, hope and legacy play out between couples and families over generations.