In a story of loss and resilience, starting in an eastern Kentucky mining camp during the Great Depression, 4 year-old Nora Faye Houston is abandoned by her mother Irene. Her daddy James, who works in the company store, married Irene months before Nora Faye was born and is the only father she has known. Sheltered from rumors concerning her true paternity she is nurtured by James and his mother Rose, and, later, her step-mother Virginia, who deal with their own past and present ordeals, raising the question: how is it that some survive their losses in one piece while others are shattered...