Winnipeg, 1967. In a home nestled in a dogleg on the Red River in Winnipeg, two sisters flourished under their grandparents’ care, while their parents ran a busy barbershop. At their grandmothers’ sudden death, their mother went into a tailspin, upending the girl’s world. The mother, adopted at birth, dragged the girls into her insatiable search for identity, through promiscuity, illicit drugs, and then turned to religion. First to Scientology, and ultimately a fundamentalist church that demanded unquestioning obedience. 

We take the reader through the sister’s spiral of neglect and abuse as the mother is blinded by her quest for belonging. The sisters have very different responses to trauma and hope and through humor and pain, they cling to each other. 

Their mother and stepfather climb the church ranks as the older sister begins to crack. She lashes out, which threatens the younger sister’s desperate need for her mother’s affection. At all costs, the mother fiercely tries to bury mounting secrets, even if it means tearing her own daughters apart.

Through twists and turbulence, the sisters finally their way back to each other. This is a gripping memoir of resilience and courage as two sisters find their voices in a book that culminates in a dramatic courtroom ending.