Chrissie is eight and she has a secret: she has just killed a boy. She has a feeling of power that she never gets at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Twenty years later, Chrissie is living in hiding under a changed name, and all she wants is for her daughter to have the childhood she herself was denied. That's why the threatening phone calls are so terrifying—the past is catching up, and Chrissie fears losing the only thing in this world she cares about.