Book excerpt: From bestselling author Hannah Beckerman comes a moving story about memory, secrets, and what it really means to feel that you're one of the family. When Nell's father makes a deathbed declaration that hints at a long-held secret, it reignites feelings of isolation that have plagued her for years. Her suspicions about the family's past only deepen when her mother, Annie, who is losing her memories to dementia, starts making cryptic comments of her own. Thirty-five years earlier, Annie's life was upended by a series of traumas--one shock after another that she buried deep in her heart. The decisions she made at the time were motivated by love, but she knew even then that nobody could ever understand--let alone forgive--what she did. As the two women's stories unravel, a generation apart, Nell finally discovers the devastating truth about her mother's past, and her own. In this beautifully observed and emotionally powerful story of identity, memory and the nature of family, Hannah Beckerman asks: To what lengths would you go to protect the ones you love?