Miri is 65 years old and largely defeated in life. She and her husband Yakob owned a transient hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district but when Yakob was killed in a robbery the hotel goes into foreclosure and Miri makes pennies tutoring neighborhood kids. She dresses in black, rarely goes out, and eats very little. But she is saving for something because we see her squirrel money away in the body of a doll dressed in the clothes of a Ukrainian peasant. Olga, Miri’s sister, sends her letters which Miri doesn’t answered. Then, unannounced, her niece, Rachel, comes into her life.