Reba Wilcox is born out of wedlock to a mother who is mentally tormented. The product of a broken home, in which she is given the name of another man, she struggles to be the person she thinks she is. The ordeal of feeling like an outsider, but being treated as one of the family, that doesn't allow her to speak of the mother she lost; she grows up longing for her. In this story of a dysfunctional family, with no mother and an illiterate grandmother figure, Reba tries to do it all alone. A black in Chicago, from State Street to the projects, she finds her way to the father she barely remembers, only to find she is truly alone and on her own.