On a late night bus, nine year-old Sophie and her mother wake to find they have missed their connection. Alone in the night in a strange town, the pair make their way to meet Sophie's father John, a stranger whom she has never known. Dawn brings the promise of a happy family, John arrives, they speed away for a day at 'the races'. Sophie comes closer to her dream of a happy family but as the day wears on, light once again gives way to darkness. With first her father, and then her mother revealed as not what they seem, Sophie must make a long journey to another hopeful dawn.