When sixty-three-year-old Alma, a failure at all she undertakes, decides to run away from her controlling and impatient husband, the result, like most of her efforts, is a disaster. She ends up in rehab in Glen Willow Gardens nursing home among the other "inmates" who mostly suffer from some form of dementia.
As Alma recovers from both an accident and a subsequent stroke, her kindness and humor lead her to enjoy unfamiliar successes in caring for herself and others. She also finds friendship with a lonely gardener and with the man who was responsible for her accident. When it is time to choose her path into the future, she leaves Glen Willow Gardens a stronger, more independent woman