Nine-year-old Dauka longs for his father, a sailor, to return from the sea. His mother Ilga finds herself unable to tell him and his sister Liga the truth: their father has died. Ilga loved her deceased husband and cannot resign herself to what has happened. More from grief than attraction, she falls into a relationship with Viktor, the forester. In a fit of jealousy, Viktor’s wife Ruta, who works in the post office, starts sending telegrams to Dauka purporting to be from his father. Consequently, it only gets harder for the mother to tell the boy the truth. Caught up in a web of deceit, Ilga sinks deeper and deeper in her despair. From this point little Dauka is left on his own in his quest to find his dad so that he can learn from him what to do and how to live in the world. Who will provide the answer - people? nature? the sea?