At the center of the story is Kassima, a young widow who is mourning her husband and sons, lost to the violence of Pittsburgh streets. Defending herself against further loss, she allows no one to get close to her - until she is tripped up by a passionate affair with a gentle man named Robert Jones, who yearns to break through the barriers Kassima has erected.

When violence threatens his life too, she retreats, to "find out what's inside of me I can lean on besides love." But the two are reunited by the death of Kassima's tenant, old Mr. Mallory. A self-educated eccentric who roamed the streets with his ancient camera in a shopping bag, Mallory had fled from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh late in life, racked by painful memories. He leaves behind an astounding legacy: a box of photographs that hauntingly document half a century of African American history, from the Move debacle in Philadelphia to the high tensions and everyday sorrows of Pittsburgh's black community.

After he dies, Kassima must decide what to do with the pictures, which she promised she would burn. At a moment of explosive neighborhood confrontation, the photographs provide her with an unexpected means of healing her community and herself.