Fleeing the terrors of her home, a Haitian woman finds that life in
America is filled with its own hardships Simone has gotten used to
living in fear. After years of dictatorship, Haiti has sunk into chaos,
and death is ever present. But it isn't the corpse she finds on her
doorstep that convinces Simone to flee the island of her birth-it's the
night she sees her lover with his arm draped around the shoulder of
another. Death is one thing, but she cannot tolerate heartbreak. The
assistant to the United States' cultural attaché, Simone is clever
enough to get herself a green card. But when she gets to New York, she
finds that her smarts cannot guarantee her a job. Accepting a position
as a "caregiver" in a wealthy community upstate, Simone finds herself
little more than a glorified nanny to a pair of astonishingly spoiled
children. But there is a dark side to her humble new life among the
WASPs, and this émigré will find that the rich can be more barbaric than
she ever knew.