Ashley has “had more than a dozen so-called mothers in my life,” including her birth mother, Lorraine Rhodes; Gay Courter, who adopted her; and several “fillers,” including one “who was as wicked as a fairytale witch” (vii). As a child, Ashley waits to be reunited with her mother, sometimes seeing her frequently and sometimes not seeing her “for years at a stretch” (vii).

Whenever Ashley sees her mother again, she feels a “rush of joy,” and her mother tells her, “‘Sunshine, you’re my baby and I’m your only mother’” (vii). She says that she is “the only mama who will love you forever and ever” and that they will “be together soon” (vii). Ashley repeats the word soon “like a lullaby” as “a mantra when nobody [will] listen to me” (viii). Ashley remembers that, “[n]aïve and trusting, I always believed her, and in some very small way—even now—I still do” (viii).

At age 2, Ashley lives in a caravan with her mother, Lorraine, and her mother’s twin sister, Leanne, who “dropped out of school to help support me” (1). The sisters work “different shifts and [take] turns caring for [Ashley]” (2).