When a young woman with a startling resemblance to John Andrew's wife Miranda appears days before her funeral, John Andrew MacGinnis begins an odyssey towards understanding. His son Donald is now Dawn, home to mourn her mother and repair the estrangement with her Dad. An ancient tractor becomes a focus for the mechanically-minded Dawn, but John Andrew's long-simmering resentments about the tractor heighten family tensions. As they restore the family tractor Dawn and her Dad cautiously rebuild their relationship and come to understand the mechanics of the heart.