For Orla, living in the suburbs in 1968 on the cusp of adolescence, her father is a great shining light, whose warm and powerful presence fills her world. But after his sudden death, Orla, her mother and her sister are left in a no-man's land, a place where the certainties and protections of the nuclear family suddenly and mysteriously no longer apply, and where the path between girl and woman must be navigated alone.