In the summer of 1906, a young girl discovers a near lifeless, naked woman washed onto the shore of Pine Cove Key, a small island off the west coast of Florida. The child is convinced the woman is her mother who had disappeared years before. Residents of the island believe her mother was a victim of foul play.

The storm-battered woman awakens in the home of the island's acrimonious grand matriarch. She gradually reveals to the homeowner's housemaid details of her privileged, although unfulfilled, life in New Orleans. Wracked with guilt over the abandonment of her family and her attempted suicide, she confesses the willful actions that had driven her to unthinkable choices and their resulting consequences. She also learns about the little girl responsible for saving her and the dismal circumstances surrounding the impoverished child's home life.

With no means to leave and completely dependent on others, the woman wrestles with how she will survive in the small island community. She soon learns that her bleak situation cannot compare with two other women's despairing truths. The three women soon forge a resourceful bond empowering them to weather the storms of each one's forsaken "island." At last, through mounting concern for the little girl who discovered her on the shore, her heart awakens to compassion, love, and forgiveness.