She once astounded the creative world with her ability to make beautiful and sustainable structures out of unexpected supplies. Now, she's just bitter. She lives with her quirky genius daughter, Bee, and her career-minded software developer husband, Elgin, in a decrepit building once used as a school for girls. She stays in, hating people and outsourcing their life to a woman in India, while her husband and Bee rattle around the world, trying to fit in. After Bernadette runs over a lady's foot at her daughter's school, she goes missing and it is up to Bee to piece together her emails and letters to find out what happened and who her mother really is.