It's the start of the summer holidays, and Sister Veronica arrives at an abandoned warehouse looking for a family to discuss the children's truancy. The mother is pregnant, but her imposing husband is refusing a midwife visit. Fearing for the mother's safety, Sister Veronica involves Sister Julienne, who must find the strength to help the mother through a traumatic birth whilst overcoming her own personal crisis. Shelagh makes a house call to see a man who lives inside an iron lung after being paralysed from a polio infection.