The year is 1941 and Jacob has just returned home to Georgia from Cornell University. His father asks him for a favor, despite their damaged relationship, and Jacob agrees. He is to deliver an incredibly valuable and rare antique duck decoy that his father bought at auction to an art collector in Miami. When Jacob refuses to leave for the trip early due to his romantic plans with his longtime love, Ainslee Scott, his father conspires to ruin their relationship by telling Jacob she basically has fooled around with the whole town while he was away. Jacob leaves town in the heat of the moment and heads down South to deliver the decoy. After drinking too much at a bar on the way, he gets a flat tire in an impoverished neighborhood, but is rescued by a little black boy named Tevin who was riding his bicycle home. Jacob is overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of Tevin's poor family and his disdain towards his father's greed reaches an all time high. Tevin, like all little boys, loves toy ducks, but happens to have a special love and fascination for ducks. Tevin tells Jacobthat duck dads don't stay with their babies forever just like his dad didn't stay with him. Although Jacob and Tevin couldn't have had more different upbringings, Jacob feels a connection to Tevin due to their lack of true father figures. Before Jacob leaves the next day he makes the spontaneous and crazy decision to give Tevin the extraordinarily valuable duck decoy he was supposed to deliver. He says nothing of it's value, but tells Tevin to keep it safe until he is grown. That duck goes on to change the lives of everyone who comes into contact with it, and we learn, that there really is...something about ducks.