Maria saves a man from drowning , just as she was about to take her own life, only to find out that small kindnesses can come back and change your life.

Lavinia, a single mother trying to make a better life on her own terms for herself and her 13-year-old son, live in a poor Romanian village. She is impulsive, prone to misreading situations, and not sure how to love. But her son, on the threshold between childhood and adolescence, needs his mother more than ever, and over the course of four seasons their relationship is put to the test.