Ex-member of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, Dr. David Foster, a distinguished neurosurgeon, returns to Spain thirty years later for a medical conference. On the ruins he once fought, the modern city of Barcelona has sprung up. Foster goes searching for Maria, a nurse who nurtured him back to health after he was wounded in battle. Instead of finding Maria, the doctor encounters her daughter who looks just like her mother....

Marcela, a young immigrant with financial troubles, finds a summer job looking after Amador, a bed-ridden elderly man whose family is away. She thinks her problems are solved, but Amador dies shortly thereafter, putting Marcela in a predicament. His death leaves her jobless, something she can't afford to let happen. Faced with a difficult moral dilemma, Marcela will prove that death can't always stop life.