In his wanderlust, Joe Cullen moves from the US to South America to work in a mining camp, he leaving behind his wife Julie and their infant daughter, Ellen Mary. After Joe stops writing and sending money, Julie, not expecting Joe ever to return to her in he being dissatisfied with married life, files for divorce, and moves with Ellen Mary to the town of Howard to start life anew working in the payroll department of Howard Factory. Among the people she meets and befriends in Howard is coworker Frank Richards, the friendship with him which slowly but eventually blossoms into romance. Despite some opposition from his parents, especially his father, Frank and Julie get married, Frank, in the process, becoming the only father that Ellen Mary has really ever known, a loving one at that. After Julie and Frank have a child of their own, William so named after his father, Joe, four years after his departure, returns solely wanting to reestablish a relationship of sorts with now adolescent Ellen Mary. After Joe sees Julie's new life, he changes his want from that relationship with Ellen Mary to suing for full custody. The sole issue, originally with William's Sr.'s objection to the marriage, and to Joe's want for full custody, is that Julie and Joe, and thus by association Ellen Mary, are white, while Frank is black.