When Mary, a teenager living in a group home, becomes pregnant, authorities take another look at the crime for which Mary was convicted when she was nine years old.

While helping police officers Esther and Lon investigate a suspicious death at her group home, nineteen-year-old Sal Miyake, who is mentally challenged, gains insights into herself and makes new friends.

"In this young adult novel, fourteen-year-old Eva Brown is coping with difficulties at home and at school, most significantly her mother's alcoholism. When Eva's nohkum (grandmother) is hospitalized, her mother struggles to care for Eva and her younger brother. After Eva's brother wanders away, he is sent to live with a foster family and Eva finds herself in a group home. Furious at her mother's weakness, Eva struggles to adjust to the group home--and...