When his father dies, a Cuban man who was raised in the United States, learns that he was not abandoned by his mother but illegally taken out of Cuba. He goes back to the island and is helped in his search by a cousin and a taxi driver.

Julio del Toro is a successful writer in his fifties, who has always had his life under his control, until the day that, returning from one of his frequent foreign travel, this consistent world will fall into crisis. His daughter has started an affair with a Spanish older than him, his mistress poses a serious ultimatum, a young journalist begins to prepare a report on his work, and he faces the question if he is already finished as a creator. While Julio feels increasingly confused and disoriented, the women around him will make the decisions that he is not able to take.

An unclaimed fortune, grown for centuries in a British bank account, becomes a potential windfall for Bernadito Castiñeiras and the residents of the tiny village of Yaragüey, Cuba. To receive his massive inheritance check, Bernadito must prove his lineage to the Castiñeiras nuns who first populated the region. In an isolated and impoverished town where many residents share the same surname, a feud breaks out between the "Castiñeiras" and "Castiñeyras" families.