In memories that rise like wisps of ghosts, LuLing Young searches for the name of the Famous Bonesetter from the Mouth of the Mountain. Trying to hold on the evaporating past, she begins to write all she can remember of the life as a girl in China. While tending to her ailing mother, LuLing's daughter Ruth discovers the pages her mother wrote in Chinese. Within her pages awaits the truth about a mother's heart, what she cannot tell her daughter yet hopes she will never forget.