Petra Fresco, a young college graduate, haunted by memories of family lost in the Holocaust and struggling to come to terms with her own identity, arrives in Manhattan during the 1950 s. While uncovering the details of her relatives' flight from Europe during WWII and her grandfather s ultimate sacrifice, she falls in love with a student from India, who, like herself, is also a refugee. In this tender coming of age story, racial and cultural divides are bravely crossed in an epic battle between human resilience and the inevitability of one s own heritage.