In the mid-1900s, an upper class mother observes her two daughters playing with doves they mysteriously find on the lawn. She dwells on her relationship with her daughters, her husband, and her age as a storm brews and tragedy befalls her daughters.

A devoted mother wants to protect her children's innocence, but this changes when her son gravely injures her only daughter.

Against a backdrop of modern-day city life, a new Islamic mother navigates the complexities of her love life, as she cheats on her fiancée-then-husband with another man, who ends up being the father of her children. She admits to loving both men, and struggles to balance her family life with the need to be with her true love.

Fearing her father's cruelty, a young girl is determined to save a bird trapped in the attic. Things spiral out of control when she realizes that her intervention has proved to be worse than anything her father could have done.

An encounter with a little boy and his abusive mother at an airport causes an old woman to reflect upon her relationship with her children and her late, depressive, and abusive ex-husband.

Over dinner, an observer reflects on mothers and their omnipresent prevalence in children’s lives.

A single mother whose own mother recently passed away travels to South Carolina with her seven-year-old son in search of her mother's pet parrot, as she hopes to hear her mother's voice again.

A married woman ponders the kindness and subsequent coldness of her mother-in-law.

A mother and her adult daughter act as the waitstaff in a beautiful home and mostly pass unnoticed by the inhabitants. However, when the daughter develops a fascination with an inattentive man who lives in the home, disappointment and devastation result when he moves away.

Two women are both brought together and separated by race throughout the course of their lives in this chronicle of a complicated friendship.