Parallel storylines tell the current state of affairs for two ex-lovers: Nora's a single mother who comes to care for her terminally ill father; holed in up in mental ward, Ismael, a brilliant musician, plots his escape.

The stories of Nora during a brief period when her father falls ill and of Ismaël while involuntarily committed to a mental institution for observation. Nora's in her 30s and has loved four men - her son Elias, Elias's deceased father, her own father, and Ismaël, a musician given to odd behavior with whom she lived seven years. She will soon marry a businessman. Faced with her father's death, Nora seeks out Ismaël to ask that he reconnect with Elias; a great deal else roils from her past. Ismaël has his own challenges, not the least of which are his feelings toward adopting Elias and his meeting Arielle, another patient. Ismaël's surface shows a lot; Nora's, very little.—<[email protected]>

In Paris, the thirty-five year old Nora Cotterelle has been the director of a famous art gallery for six months and will marry the wealthy owner Jean-Jacques within the next weeks. When she travels to Grenoble to meet her beloved son Elias that is spending vacation with her father, the professor and writer Louis Jenssens, she discovers that Louis has a terminal cancer, and she decides to stay in Grenoble nursing her father. Nora recalls her relationship with Elias' father Pierre and with her viola player lover Ismaël Vuillard, who raised Elias for seven years and for whom her son has a great affection. Meanwhile, Ismaël is interned in a psychiatric hospital against his will. Along the days, Nora and Ismaël discover cruel secrets about their families' relationships.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil