The Nasr family is spread across the globe. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father and three American children all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell. The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house. They all have secrets that distance has helped smother. But in a city smoldering with the legacy of war, an ongoing flow of refugees, religious tension and political protest, those secrets ignite, imperiling the fragile ties that hold this family together.

On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia’s brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can’t escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home. Soon Alia’s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities.