Pushing Daisies centers on the life of Ned, a pie-maker gifted with the mysterious ability to bring dead things back to life by touching them. There are a couple of conditions to this somewhat unwanted talent, however. Ned quickly learns that if something is revived for more than exactly one minute, something of similar "life value" in the vicinity drops dead, as a form of balance. Additionally, if he touches the revived thing a second time, it falls dead again, this time permanently. In the pilot episode, Ned discovers his gift as a child by resurrecting his Golden Retriever, Digby, after the dog is hit by a truck. He later brings back his mother when she dies of an aneurysm. However, he accidentally causes the death of the father of his childhood sweetheart, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, as the "price" of keeping his mother alive. Even worse, Ned's mother then falls dead permanently when she gives him his good-night kiss (which is how he learns the effect of the second touch). Ned and Chuck are separated; her agoraphobic aunts Vivian and Lily move in to take the role of her parents, while he is shipped off to a lonely boarding school by his father. Inheriting his mother's baking talents, Ned becomes a pie-maker who owns a restaurant called "The Pie Hole," which he runs with the help of waitress Olive Snook. The restaurant is failing financially when private investigator Emerson Cod accidentally discovers Ned's gift and offers him a proposal: Ned will bring murder victims back to life, inquire about the circumstances of their untimely death, then touch them once more, all before his set limit of sixty seconds is up. Emerson will then solve the case and they will split the reward money. The scheme succeeds until they learn that Chuck, whom Ned hasn't seen since childhood, has been murdered on a cruise. When her body is shipped back home, Ned revives her, but can't bring himself to touch her a second time. Against his better judgment, Ned allows her to live and the larcenous funeral home director falls dead in her place. Ned and Chuck fall in love again and he brings her home to live with him under the unique circumstances of their never being able to touch each other. Chuck is extraordinarily grateful upon receiving a second chance at life, and as such she starts to appreciate life as a truly precious resource and Ned, witnessing his vivacious beauty's happiness, begins to break out of his lonely shell.