This memoir traces the lives of four generations of women. From England in 1901 to Australia in 2005, it encompasses the vast social changes of the twentieth century. The values and beliefs passed down from mother to daughter no longer fit, daughters ask questions their mothers cannot answer, mothers have expectations their daughters refuse to meet. On her eighty-eighth birthday, Edith tells Lainie a secret she has kept for over seventy years, transforming their relationship for the short time they have left. As the author searches for meaning in her own life, stories of her grandmother, mother and daughter unfold and she reflects on why they each crossed conventional boundaries of their eras.