The seemingly inexplicable estrangement between a woman and her grown
daughter opens up a troubling question: What damage do we do in the
blindness of love?
Thousands of miles from home, a woman stands on a dark street, peeking
through well-lit windows at two little girls. They are the grandchildren
she's never met, daughters of the daughter she has not seen in years.
At the center of this mesmerizing story is the woman's quest to
understand how a relationship that began in bliss--a mother besotted
with her only child--arrived at a point of such unfathomable distance.
Weaving back and forth in time, she unravels memories and long-buried
feelings, retracing the infinite acts of parental care, each so mundane
and apparently benign, that in ensemble may have undermined what she
most treasured. With exquisite psychological precision, Blum traces the
seemingly insignificant missteps and deceptions of family life, where
it's possible to cross the line between protectiveness and possession
without even seeing it--and uncertain whether, or how, we can find our
way back.
