Raised by her paternal grandmother, Carmem, since she was four years old in Petrópolis, Beatriz decides to travel to Rio de Janeiro when she comes across a photo of her missing mother, Clarice, in a magazine.

In 1942, washerwoman and painter, Clarice, takes care of her young daughter Beatriz - whose father was brutally murdered after being "mistaken for a criminal" - with the help of her mother-in-law, Carmem, owner of an orphanage in Petrópolis. Hoping to display her paintings in an art exhibition, Clarice travels to Rio de Janeiro, planning to return soon after to pick up her daughter. However, upon arriving in the Marvelous City, she meets the businessman Juliano, heir to Perfumaria Carioca, one of the biggest soap brands in the country, who falls deeply in love with her. The romance is not well accepted by Juliano's mother, the cunning and manipulative Maristela, who opposes her son's marriage to Clarice upon learning that her future daughter-in-law already has a daughter with another man and because Clarice is of a lower class. Eventually, Clarice and Juliano decide to get married, with Clarice promising to bring Carmem and Beatriz to live with her. However, Jualiano has a former lover, Valéria who he has a daughter with and has promised to marry eventually. During an argument, Juliano accidentally kills Valéria, and the crime is witnessed by Clarice, who ends up being run over while trying to escape. Due to the accident, Clarice loses her memory, remembering only that she has a daughter named Beatriz. Maristela decides to take advantage of Clarice's condition and create a false past for her in order to cover up the crime. Sixteen years later, in 1958, Beatriz, now a young woman who teaches children at her grandmother's orphanage, grew up believing that her mother had died. One day, after seeing a picture of her in a magazine, she decides to move to Rio de Janeiro in search of her.—brazilianaudiovisuallover