The elegant and wealthy Bárbara gives birth to a stillborn child, but never receives the bad news. Her husband, Guilherme, swaps the child's body for that of a baby whose mother is very poor and unable to raise him. Thirty years later, Eugênio, the swapped boy, suffers mercury poisoning, develops leukemia, and needs an urgent bone marrow transplant. But the surgery can only be performed with a donation from a blood relative. Faced with the risk of his son's death, Guilherme tells Bárbara the truth. With everything clarified, the two go in search of Anabel Muñoz, the boy's real mother and the only one who can save his life. Anabel kept her pregnancy a secret, but never forgot the child she had with the unscrupulous Urbano. She is the widow of the Cuban Félix Muñoz and has five other children: Valentim, Remédios, Amparo, Assunção, and Antônio.