After Sharon McCone's father dies of a sudden heart attack, she
immediately heads to San Diego to scatter his ashes and clear out his
house. In a box of legal papers, she finds a 1959 petition for adoption
of a child called Baby Girl Smith--an infant who, from the day of
adoption, has been known as Sharon Elizabeth McCone.
No one in Sharon's family will discuss the adoption, so she begins her
own search for the truth. Her quest takes her deep into Indian country,
to the Flathead Reservation in Montana. When her birth mother is
critically injured in a hit-and-run accident, Sharon begins to
understand that her search has caused a resurgence of old hatreds and
fueled present-day violence.