Rachel is a well-off, childless 50-year old woman who recognizes that she is the last of her line and is headed toward, in the vernacular of old-time obituaries, “dying without issue.” Mining her own past as she looks for a way to leave something of herself behind, she discovers an ancestor who fled the French Revolution and ended up on a Georgia Sea Island with an ill-fated plan to get rich quick. The plan, Rachel discovers, included enslaving the local Gullah-Geechee population and logging the island’s ancient forest of live oak trees. With the island’s modern-day community facing economic, cultural, and ecological pressure as they envision the future of their unique home landscape, what began as an intimate look into family history quickly becomes a winding, unpredictable journey and a complex consideration of the legacy of colonialism in which Rachel questions whether she can make amends for the sins of her forebears.