Ted Smith's life has never been boring. The son of Italian immigrants, he's been through a world war, several near-death experiences, and a few less-than-savory business deals. Now that he is the president of the Mansfield Industries Mining Company, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, he wants nothing more than to help his girlfriend, Charlotte Mansfield, with her psychological trauma.
Ted was once best friends with Charlotte's father, Walter, and though several years separate the couple in age, Ted loves her deeply. But Charlotte has developed PTSD from years of abuse at her father's hands and has become mentally unstable. Ted wants Charlotte to know what her father was like before the war ruined him, and he begins to read her Walter's World War II-era diary.
Even with the help of a family therapist, Charlotte is unable to exorcize the demons that have caused her to develop multiple split personalities. Confused and tormented by the past and the present, Charlotte leaves Ted to try and find healing. But Ted himself has a new identity to grapple with as he becomes the Smith family patriarch in California.
When specters of the past threaten Charlotte and Ted, they must make a decision: stay and answer for their crimes, or flee and start a new live elsewhere?