In a small Basque town in the early-to-mid 1900s, the Widow Etcheverrigaray and Madame Utuburu are neighbors with one apple tree growing from the wall between their two houses. Some apples fall on Etcheverrigaray’s side, while others on Utuburu's. When they were young and not yet widows, both Etcheverrigaray and Utuburu fell in love with One-leg Zabala, a crass man who had his leg blown off in World War I as God’s punishment for premarital sex. Neither woman declares her love for him, but the whole town knows it. One-leg Zabala leaves town for a little. He returns to find that both women have married and given birth to a boy, each one exceptional in his way. Etcheverrigaray’s husband is a drunk and soon dies—not from drinking, but rather because it was his time to go to God. Meanwhile, Utuburu’s husband is perpetually unlucky. His sheep are struck by lightning, and his crops are poor. He thinks his luck is in when he gets a large inheritance from a distant relative, but as he is walking home one night and drowns in a river. Thus, they become Widow and Madame respectively. Madame Utuburu uses her husband’s inheritance to buy a small house on the edge of town, right next door to Widow Etcheverrigaray’s. When a baker from Licq comes to the village with pristine apples, the two women race to the tree to pick their own. They wrestle over the branches, and Madame Utuburu falls off the wall into her garden. Their fight is the talk of the village, and the next year the two women compete even more fiercely, gardening from dawn till dusk every single day. One day, Zabala dies. He had never shown either of the women any kind of affection. Yet, they stand around his gravestone in the pouring rain for hours after the funeral, competing for who can stay the longest. Shortly thereafter, Widow Etcheverrigaray dies, likely from a cold she picked up during the funeral. Madame Utuburu realizes she has nothing to live “against” and loses interest in her garden. During the traditional Basque funeral services, Utuburu takes an item from Etcheverrigaray’s home. In the final scene, Utuburu walks into town to where the village women are washing clothes, takes out the item—Etcheverrigaray’s son’s university thesis—and reads to the women about how amazing both their sons are.