One choice changes the lives of two families completely. The four year old daughter of a Mi’kmaq native american family is kidnapped by a distraught white woman who has had too many tragic, failed pregnancies, and is desperate for a child. Each member of the Indian family is damaged and saddened deeply by the loss of Ruthie, but none more than her six year old brother Joe, whose life never really gets back on track after the loss. Ruthie’s new parents name her Norma, and her new mother carefully tries to erase any sign of the girl’s past, her husband and sister complicit while not knowing what is the right thing to do. Most deeply impacted is Ruthie, who only knows herself as Norma, living with the ghosts of vague memories of another life, never feeling quite at home with her parents, and her parents never able to completely relax and enjoy life as a family.

Peters does an excellent job of empathizing with her characters, especially the two pivotal characters, Joe and Norma. The story is told in alternating chapters between these two, the most profoundly derailed by the rash action. Joe cannot forgive himself, the child of six who left Ruthie alone on the edge of the berry field, gone off to play while the family is picking berries in Maine to earn money that will help see them into the fall and winter in their Nova Scotia home. Joe’s life is further impeded when as a young teen, he witnesses his brother Charlie brutally beaten by a family of young thugs, while trying to defend a drunken Indian. It is all too much for Joe to bear, his guilt and impotent anger overwhelming him, ultimately leading him to abandon his family, new wife, and unborn child (of which he is unaware) aimlessly driving west, moving around the woods of British Columbia without purpose, never finding the peace and quiet he desires. He loses many years, unable to return to his family, unable to control angry impulses, overwhelming guilt, and a sense that he deserves exile from the comforts of family for how he feels he has failed them.

Norma is raised by her loving yet chilly parents, especially by her nervously neurotic mother, who self-soothes with whiskey. Her mother is naturally perpetually anxious that someone will come to take her child away, or that she would be similarly kidnapped. Norma is never allowed to play with neighborhood kids, constantly shielded and protected. Her parents create a web of lies to cover for the lack of early photos and Norma’s darker skin tone. When Norma’s nightly nightmares, really intrusive memories of her former life, leave her greatly unsettled, her mother’s sister Aunt June has a friend named Alice who visits with Norma from time to time, providing informal counseling, comfortably giving the girl strategies for handling these thoughts and dreams. Although Alice is part of the parents’ subterfuge, she is a supportive voice of reason, an understanding adult who helps Norma when she has no other succor.

Peters braids Joe and Norma’s narratives until circumstances bring the inevitable reunion that the reader longs for. Time is certainly lost, but all is not yet lost. Redemption is granted for Joe and Norma, a satisfying conclusion to this story. Peters shows us the northern Maine - Nova Scotia geography to beautiful effect. She also shows the prejudice native americans were made to endure, the economic disadvantages, and the terrible history of Indian schools where children were separated from family and beaten when trying to speak their native language. Peters sensitively depicts the impacts on Norma, who always senses that she is different from her peers, that her family isn’t normal, and that something significant is missing from her life. I highly recommend this novel. It has much sorrow, but it is very emotionally real, and the characters are people you will want to spend time with, care about, and see through this journey.