"There are few things of such importance as one's own identity."

Emma Molloy is forced to look back on her life due to a chance encounter on a cruise ship with an old friend. Emma, the adopted daughter, has grown up alongside her natural-born sister, Elizabeth, in Flushing, Queens, New York. As life goes on for Emma, she finds a lack of support from Tom Molloy, her father, who has obviously chosen Elizabeth as his favorite. This choice compounds into more and more problems for Emma's life. It ends up accelerating her desire to find out about her birth mother. With the passing of Tom's wife, Patricia; life manages to find a way to become even more difficult for Emma.