She was a chosen child, her adoptive parents said, and more dearly loved because of that. But her beautiful, stubborn Julia had an obsessive need to know the story that had been enacted on the other side of the hospital crib from wich they had taken her.

Like so many other unreasoned, deeply felt desires, Julia's particular obssesion drove her away form security and familiar things to find the answer to her lifelong quest. In far away New Zealand, Julia walked in on a woman who, without forgetting, had none-theless learned to live without her. Now Julia would have to learn to live without the fantasy that had dominated her entire life.