Lucy wakes up in a hospital room and finds her own mother nearby. A mother whom she has not seen for many years, who was never gentle with her as a child, who could not protect her, console her, or make her life, if not happy, then at least bearable. Lucy wants to start all over from scratch. To be just Lucy Barton - to forget how her parents beat her and locked her in an old truck, to forget how she, an always dirty and ragged girl, was humiliated and teased at school. But at the same time, an adult Lucy - a married woman, mother of two daughters, author several published stories - she lacks maternal warmth. And her mother is also lonely, and she, too, probably lacks spiritual closeness. But what if you don’t have the gift of love?