It’s 1999, and Netta is doing her best to raise her 12-year-old son, Julian, in West Footscray. As a tough, strong-willed single mum, she has raised him to be self-sufficient while doing her best to protect him from the strains of life. But as Netta deals with financial woes, Julian’s health issues, an unreliable ex-husband and the tragedy that has cast a shadow over her life – the death of her father, killed along with many other migrant workers in the collapse of the West Gate Bridge in 1970 – she is barely able to keep her own head above water. Attempting to keep a promise she made to her son on a day when all of her pressures come to a head, Netta is left to search for new sources of strength and, at long last, face the grief she’s been running away from.