September 1953, London's East End - Edie Birch, who believes herself to be a war widow, has finally allowed herself to fall in love again. Engaged to be married, she is happily planning her wedding day. But fate has a blow in store - her fifteen-year-old daughter, Maggie, is pregnant. A plan has been hatched to stop her daughter from falling from grace. Hidden away above an Italian cafe in Islington until she is ready to give birth, Maggie works long hours behind the scene while her mother Edie, in East London, feigns pregnancy. The charade works until the baby arrives and hard decisions are to be made. Can Maggie return home and cope with the pretence of her own child being her brother? And will her boyfriend's close Italian family agree to give up their grandson? Worse still, will the truth out once Edie's first husband turns up to demand his rights as grandfather?