Alexa Petri has had a difficult relationship with her mother Cornelia for many years. However, now Cornelia is in a coma, and Alexa must take over her guardianship. She discovers a letter that reveals Cornelia in a whole new light: as a passionate young woman in Hamburg in the early sixties and as a victim of the devastating storm surge disaster. Alexa begins to sense who her mother really is. When an old friend of Cornelia's appears, Alexa seizes the opportunity and has her mother's story told to her.