Growing up in Depression-era Kentucky, sisters Bertie and Mabel only had each other; their mother died giving birth to their half-brother and now they are living with their step-father who drinks and is abusing Mabel. To save Bertie, Mabel and Bertie’s beau make a plan to get Bertie out of Kentucky. Fearful, they do not tell Bertie and on the day of her eighth grade graduation, things go wrong and Bertie doesn’t make the escape and worse, thinks that Mabel has betrayed her. The story that follows is Bertie’s story, and Mabel’s, and their daughter’s and granddaughter’s stories as the women live with what each considers a betrayal and the consequences of Bertie’s unwillingness to forgive. Told in vignettes, each from a different point of view, each during a different time period, each woman struggles with her own life, shaped by the lives of those who came before her. Deceptively simplistic, sometimes a bit melodramatic, these characters and their stories will linger nonetheless.
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