In 1892 an eight-year-old orphan, Emily Bowers, must put up a brave front as she travels with her two younger sisters from Rockvale, Colorado, to Davenport, Iowa, where they are going to live with a family they've never met. To relieve her loneliness, Emily writes to the Colorado family who cared for her, gaining strength from her recollections of their love for her. Over the years, Emily develops close ties to her new family and also discovers a common bond with the boy next door who had arrived in Davenport on an orphan train. Along the way, she begins to discover more about her own German immigrant mother, and finally as a young wife, Emily receives several letters that fill in all the missing gaps in her family's story. Her quest to understand the mystery of her family's relationships and the many dimensions of a family's love forms the heart of the story.