Barefoot, I pick my way across the rough floorboards to where a drawer lined with a quilt serves as a crib. Kneeling as if at chapel, I gaze down at my babe in her makeshift manger.

I must not touch her. When I look I must not touch. When I touch I must not look. In this way Mam says no bond will form.

Having fallen pregnant to a German POW, a young woman gives up her child for adoption. Years later, after a loveless childhood, her daughter will finally discover the secrets of her birth.