The year is 1953-and the worst of tragedies has struck the Cardinal family. A devestating car accident takes the life of Jack Cardinal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and leaves his young wife a bedridden invalid who has completely withdrawn. Lou and her younger brother Oz travel by train with their mother to the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, where their great-grandmother Louisa lives on a remote farm, ready and willing (if not financially prepared) to take the broken family in.

Rising every morning hours before dawn, working on the farm and learning at the school house their father attended years before, Lou and Oz slowly begin to heal emotionally and grow in unexpected ways. All while waiting for their silent mother to return to them. When a natural gas company comes to town and makes an offer on her land, Louisa refuses to sell. To keep their farm, with the weight of the company and their own greedy neighbors against them, the family must rely on tyhe kindliness of a town lawyer to try their case in court-while both Lou and Oz pray for a miracle. The climactic courtroom battle is as unpredictable as it is relentless and will not only decide the fates of Lou, Oz, and their mother, but also all who have been touched by them.