In 1942, Homer Macauley (Alex Neustaedter) is a boy determined to be the best and fastest bicycle telegraph messenger of the small fictional town of Ithaca, CA. His older brother, Marcus (Jack Quaid), along with most of the young men of the town, has gone to serve in World War II, leaving the families worried. His father (Tom Hanks) has died recently in the war and the boy has to take care of his widowed mother (Meg Ryan), his older sister and his 4-year-old brother. Homer delivers letters that bring messages of love, wishes, pain, and death, hoping that one of them announces the return of his brother.