Vita is an old Sicilian lady that lives the lockdown due to the sanitary emergency. It is an opportunity for her to think about her past and emotions related to it. Then she decides to tell her story to her grandchild Nina, who lives away from her, in Milan, where she studies at university. Vita writes pages full of memories, in which she talks about her youth, her marriage, when she worked as embroiderer, and the times when she embroidered and fought against exploitation.
Inspired by a true story, the novel tells the great women's mobilization of 1968 in Santa Caterina Villarmosa, a small town in Sicily, where embroiderers opposed the intermediaries who underpaid them. Women's protest led to the approval, in 1973, of the law that safeguards domestic work.