t's 1905, and Esther Mills is a 35-year-old African-American seamstress who arrived as a teenager from the South to New York City and has supported herself reasonably well as a maker of fine undergarments — often for women who are preparing to walk down the same wedding aisle that eludes her. She has also stuffed a considerable amount of cash into a quilt, which she hopes to use as the seed money for a beauty parlor. When a Panama Canal laborer from Barbados named George Armstrong begins an epistolary relationship with her at the behest of one of Esther's congregation members, the spinster finds her heart spinning in a new direction.
