Noon and her husband Herbie find two girls on their doorstep--one an infant and the other a five-year-old. They keep the girls, who grow up loving one another like sisters, then splitting in a rivalry over a property developer and the prospect of having their neighborhood torn up by a freeway. Eventually they are reconciled by Ethel, a hell of a blues singer who seems to exist at the heart of everything the girls have been searching for.