"Avie Goss is a "change baby" - a child born to a mother on the brink of menopause, almost a generation after her two siblings. When her mother nearly dies in a house fire, Avie returns home to the South she abandoned after college. At the age of twenty-four she must take on the unprecendented responsibility of caring for her elderly and ailing mother. As coddled daughter becomes caretaker, Avie slowly begins to uncover her family's secrets, and rediscover a way of life that has all but disappeared in rural North Carolina." "Through a tangled web of relationships - with her mother, her mother's oldest friend, her deceased father, her sister and brother, her married lover - Avie comes upon a new understanding of herself and her place within her ancestral legacy. As she better learns who she is as daughter, friend, and lover, she must decide what kind of person she wants to be, and how she will embark on her future."--BOOK JACKET.