In leaving behind a troubled childhood and an alcoholic mother, Laura also set aside her dreams of studying trees in favor of a more practical job in the Canadian lumber industry, but her interest in ecology is once again sparked by the possibility that a network of mycorrhizal fungi might exist beneath the forest she oversees. When the death of a beloved aunt leaves Laura’s mother without a caretaker, and Laura’s boss refuses her request to study his trees, Laura decides it might just be time to return home to her mother, the woods of Washington, and the field of study she once loved so fiercely.