Roger Mason is a prisoner locked away in a futuristic fortress of a jail. Desperate to escape and see his daughter, he keeps making attempt after attempt to break free, but each one is foiled just as he's about to gain his freedom. As his punishments include being frozen in suspended animation for years at a time, he stays the same age while his daughter grows older. As more time keeps being added to his sentence, he despairs of ever getting out.
John Webb is recently widowed and living alone on the farm he and his brother used to share. He rarely sees his daughters, Jacqueline and Grace Ann, and his only company is Grey, the farm's longtime overseer. John's solitude is interrupted by his nephews, Carl and Gus Jr., who have been approached about drilling for oil on the farm. Tensions rise as John clashes with his opportunistic family.
When her parents and fiancé are lost in the Titanic disaster, young Edwina Winfield shoulders the responsibility of raising her three younger siblings and taking over the reins at her father's newspaper. Although she has no shortage of new would-be suitors, the memory of her lost love continues to haunt her, so she focuses instead on providing a stable home for the children, rather than marrying. But her forcefulness alienates some of the kids, who have plans of their own and rebel against her. Can she hold her fractured family together, and will she ever overcome her ghosts to shake herself out of martyrdom and have a real life of her own?
