Sylvia Grange does something horrible that her mother, Cynthia Hamilton, will never forgive. Cynthia kicks her eighteen-year-old daughter out of the house. Sylvia is lucky to encounter a well-to-do woman named Marissa Cristo. Marissa goes out of her way to help Sylvia. One of the most helpful acts is to get Sylvia a job at Risk Dynamics, a company of which Marissa is 75 percent owner. But it later turns out that Marissa has her own ulterior motives for helping Sylvia: Marissa is trying to atone for her own tragedy with her own daughter, Dinah. A love affair develops between Sylvia and Alan Shakhor, the head of her department, but deep down, each knows it cannot get anywhere. There are too many barriers between them-coworkers in a company with strict codes of conduct about such relationships, thirty-seven-year-old versus eighteen-year-old, white versus black, Jewish versus Christian, rich versus poor. It takes years for both to come to the realization that they cannot be together. By the time they reach that point of realization, other tragic events evolve, including the downward spiral of Cynthia Hamilton's economic situation. At one point, it seems that Sylvia and Cynthia will reconcile, but a grave misunderstanding ensures that they never get to see or speak to each other ever again.