August 1881: Mabel Todd, arrives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her husband David. Mabel soon fall passionately in love with Austin Dickinson, a married man with three children, and he with her.

October 2013: Alice Dickinson takes time off work to research a screenplay on a story that has fascinated her since college days, when her love of Emily Dickinson's poems began. The story is the illicit love affair between Austin Dickinson and Mabel Todd.