Driving up Highway 101 in Northern California on a summer day in 1973, daughter Carol, aged 23, lost control of the car and her husband was killed. The disaster put her life on hold, and her mother was thrust back into the nurturing role. A year after the accident Carol realized her burn scars would not go away. She changed her way of life by not going back to college, and leaving home to join Hare Krishna. Her farewell resulted in a painful estrangement, and the disaster became a catalyst for her mother, Janet, to examine her life. The author takes new emotional ground by defining herself as mothers are not usually portrayed. In their alienation, mother and daughter courageously develop a new relationship, and come into their own in the '70s, when the whole world changed.