In the years following the American war a young woman from Hanoi teaches in a rural school in the south. There she meets a troubled young man, and they have a brief romance that she recalls wistfully years later in her unhappy marriage.

After Thi's mother died, her father was unable to raise her, so she lived with her aunt-in-law and grandmother. Thi's grandmother left her a ring when she died. While packing her things, Mrs. Mai discovered it and scolded Thi, causing her to run away from home.