What would make a person retreat to her newly acquired property in rural western Colorado and shut out the world? Who is the mysterious Opal? A young woman who moves to California in the 1920s with a new husband and hopes for a new beginning, only to find herself four years later a broken person with shattered dreams. Just as she had been gaining confidence in the promise of a better life, she returns home to start over... but in the process becomes a recluse, a hermit who cannot shed her past. Inspired by real life and a woman he never met, the author of this fictionalized drama searches for answers. Why would someone live in a place of beauty and wildness, yet live amongst her own filth and garbage, alone and friendless? Opal's journey becomes his too, as little by little, he uncovers the mysteries of her life.