In a small fishing port, a woman lives with her two sons, Daniel and Samuel. Ten years earlier, when she was pregnant with the youngest, her husband left one morning at dawn, supposedly on a fishing boat, and never came back. A boat did, in fact, disappear that particular day, but as no trace of a shipwreck or of the crew has ever turned up, the family keeps hoping that the father will one day return. As a sign, the woman lights a candle in front of the window each night. One day, the oldest son encounters a strange man who perhaps knew his father.