Shaila Bhave is an immigrant woman who came with her husband to Canada in search of a different life than the one they had known in India. She is now in her house, surrounded by her neighbors, mourning the loss of the family members that were on the flight to India that disintegrated near the Irish coast. People are dealing with their grief in different ways, but Shaila herself does not know what to do; she is numb in her grief. Judith Templeton, a government official, approaches her, believing this numbness to be a sign of composure and requesting her help in getting the Indian community in Toronto to move on from this devastating loss. Before giving a definitive answer, Shaila returns to India and goes back to her family, toying with the idea of remaining there for the rest of her life. She travels around the country for a while and sees her dead husband at a temple. He tells her she must 'finish what they started,' a message that upsets her because she is unsure what it means. This sighting convinces her to return to Canada, and she agrees to help Templeton talk to an elderly Sikh couple grieving the loss of their sons. Initially, she finds herself troubled by the knowledge that they are Sikhs, because the terrorist group that coordinated the attack on the plane claimed to follow the same beliefs - but she is also aware of the fact that the actions of a few violent men do not represent the whole community. Shaila is unsettled by her own bias and strives to control it in order to connect with people who are grieving a loss similar to her own. The conversation leads her to see that the couple's refusal to accept the Canadian government's help is not an act of ignorance, but a stage in their experience of grief - a purposeful rejection of the government due to their expectation that families must 'manage their grief' rather than give into it. She is disillusioned by Templeton's cause and methods, and quits both, selling her family house and starting again. Her husband's words come to mind eventually - and she leaves her shopping bags and walks purposefully in a direction of her choosing, signifying her understanding of what he might have meant.