Fifteen-year-old Megumi is alone with her emotionally distant father and stern, silent grandmother. His unfaithfulness drove her mother away. Megumi is internally outraged at the circumstances that force her to endure an aching separation, but it is out of that pain that she begins to question who she is and what she believes in, and it is out of her loneliness that she seeks out new friendships which challenge her to define the future in her own terms. With the help of an independent woman who shows her that life is never without choices, Megumi asserts her right to defy tradition and embrace her mother in her life. A rich, multi-layered novel set in Japan in the early 1970s. (Age 13 and older)