Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose all that has been concealed when she decides to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths - her own and Winnie's, as well as the dreadful news that Winnie's daughter, Pearl, has been keeping from her mother.

So begins a series of comic misunderstandings and heartbreaking realizations about luck, loss and trust, about the things a mother cannot tell a daughter, the secrets a daughter keeps, and the miraculous resiliency of love.