Claire is a midwife in a maternity hospital. She is humane and helpful and gives herself entirely to her patients. But her life is not a bed of roses for all that. Her maternity is about to close its doors and the devoted woman is determined not to work in the new modern hospital she regards as a "baby factory". Her personal life is no triumph either: she is single and does not make friends easily. To make matters worse, her student son Simon is gradually leaving home, as he is developing a relationship with his new sweetheart Lucie. It is the moment that chooses Béatrice, her dead father's former mistress, to resurface. The eccentric, spendthrift, sensual, amoral woman (her exact opposite in fact) is really the last kind of person she needs to mix with. But Béatrice soon informs her that the suffers from brain cancer and she has nobody else to turn to. Torn between rejection and duty, what is Claire going to do?