Karen Stearns is having a rough day. 

Her preoccupation with overseeing her mother Mary’s care in an Orlando nursing home jeopardizes her job and provokes her husband to contemplate vacationing without her.  A devastating talk with her boss and a disastrous dinner with her husband are followed by yet another crisis at the facility.

            Karen learns that Mary is “sundowning,” and her repetition of the phrase, “I have to help Mother in the garden,” only underscores to Karen that Mary is slipping away from her.

A frazzled Karen bolts from the nursing home, walking blindly through a rainstorm, as her surroundings become completely unfamiliar.  She is approached by a child - one she instantly recognizes from old family photographs. 

It is her mother, Mary, age ten.

Karen is no longer in modern-day Florida, but in her mother’s hometown in central Ohio in 1939.

Mary, however, doesn’t know her, and happily brings a reluctant Karen to her home.  Shielded by anonymity, Karen is free to interact with her family - and with a mysterious family friend - in entirely new ways.

As Karen wrestles with the dilemma of returning to her own time, she rediscovers her mother, her family, and herself.