Shortly after the untimely death of her mother, Lucy makes a series of discoveries that shatter her idea of who she is and where she belongs. First, Lucy finds letters to her--letters her mother hid--from a Costa Rican named Gabriel, claiming he is her father and that he has land for her in Palmita, the coastal village where they used to spend summers. Lucy then learns that her sister, who always stayed closer to home, will inherit their mother's Northern California house, an inheritance Lucy had counted on sharing. Rudderless, disinherited, and recently demoted at work, Lucy resolves to use her upcoming spring break to revisit Palmita and track down her potential father. She arrives with high hopes that a reunion with Gabriel will heal her heart and help her build a new family. But her phantom father is nowhere to be found, and the locals are deeply suspicious of her. As she begins to see the town with the eyes of an adult, Lucy wonders if her own grief and outrage give her the right to claim her Costa Rican inheritance. Could she be happy here?