While the men experience the exotic American colony in Panama and the gold fields of California, she is left to the mercy of friends and extended family. When her brother dies overseas, he bequeaths all family property to his Panamanian mistress. This shocking calamity threatens Mary and her children with homelessness and poverty. She must defy her brother's curse in order to win her independence as a woman. In doing so, she is forced to consider a deal with a spurned suitor from her past. A story of forgiveness, redemption and the transformation of hearts spanning the tumultuous period of Antebellum America, explores the devastation done to families left behind by adventurous men in the pursuit of wealth, and is based on actual family records. It presses the question of what we truly inherit.