Historian Elliot Mercer possesses an extraordinary gift - the ability to travel through time, granted by a mysterious encounter in a park. After witnessing pivotal historical moments and following the lives of four women from 1920s Atlantic City, Elliot's mission evolves into something more profound: bearing witness to the quiet heroism of ordinary lives that history overlooks.

In "Southern France, 1948," Elliot visits a small Provençal village recovering from World War II, drawn by a photograph of women washing clothes at a communal fountain. There he meets Solange Bonnet, a dignified woman who lost her husband in the First World War and her son to Nazi execution during the Occupation. Despite these tragedies, Solange maintains the routines that sustain her community, tending a memorial garden and producing lavender honey while raising her grandchildren.

Upon returning to 2025, Elliot makes a startling discovery - his time-traveling interface allows him to follow specific individuals forward through time. He tests this ability by tracing Claudette, a baker's daughter he briefly met who was planning to move to Algeria with her fiancé. Elliot witnesses how she narrowly escapes the Algerian War of Independence, rebuilds her life as a refugee in Marseille, and how her experiences shape her son's future business success.

This new ability transforms Elliot's understanding of history. He can now witness not just isolated historical moments but their long-term human consequences - how ordinary people navigate the aftermath of war, adapt to social changes, and pass values to future generations. Through Elliot's unique perspective, we see history not as a sequence of events but as a complex network of individual lives whose ripples extend far beyond their own time.