It is 1944. Pregnant and riddled with guilt, 23-year-old Tess DeMello abruptly gives up her budding career as a nurse and ends her engagement to the love of her life, unable to live a lie. Instead, she marries the baby's father and moves to rural Hickory, North Carolina. Tess's new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night, yet locals respect him even as they see Tess as an outsider. When a polio epidemic strikes, Tess knows she is needed and defies Henry's wishes to do it. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she untangle the truth behind her husband's mysterious behavior and find the love—and the life—she was meant to have?