1917. Beatrice Haven-- Jewish, unwed-- sneaks out of her uncle's house on Cape Ann, Massachusetts, leaves her newborn baby at the foot of a pear tree, and watches as another woman claims the infant as her own. Ten years later Prohibition is in full swing, post-WWI America is in the grips of rampant xenophobia, and Bea's hopes for her future remain unfulfilled. Returning to her uncle s house she meets Emma Murphy, the headstrong Irish Catholic woman who has been raising Bea's abandoned child-- now a bright, bold, cross-dressing girl named Lucy Pear.