We all miss opportunities and make youthful mistakes. And sometimes, we wonder how our lives would change if we could relive our youth. Fannie took that chance. She was full of hope and sure that leaving Georgia for Washington, DC, would change her life.

It is fifteen years after the end of the Civil War, and Fannie, a forty-one-year-old spinster lives in a small town in Georgia, where she works as a seamstress. One day, her elderly friend, Sarah, gives her a beautiful gold pendant watch. She tells Fannie that the watch has magical properties that will make her younger. Fannie is reluctant to take the watch but humors her friend. Then something terrible happens, and Fannie is forced to use the watch. She changes her age to twenty and leaves town with nothing but a valise with a few personal items, the clothes on her back, and a handful of dollars.

Fannie loves her new life in Washington, DC, and the friends she meets in the rooming house where she lives. But life is not always easy, and Fannie has obstacles to overcome. When Fannie meets John, she finds him attractive. He begins wooing her right away, though she is hesitant to respond so quickly. She is inexperienced in the ways of the world and of men. But new problems arise, and when unbearable events take place, she leans on John and gives into his pleas that they marry. Things are good for a time. But when Sarah dies, Fannie must see that her granddaughter gets an education, and her life begins to fall apart. She is unable to conceive. Financial worries and other issues stalk her. Will her marriage survive? Will she survive?