In 1939 six-year-old Henry, who is deaf, is taken from his family and placed in a home for the feeble-minded where, years later, his friends include a conscientious objector serving there during World War II.

With the help of her cousin and their friends, Danna scours the city, searching for her grandfather's favorite foods and hoping the remembered flavors will bring back his memories. Danna Mendoza Villarreal's grandfather is slowly losing himself as his memories fade, and Danna's not sure her plan to help him remember through the foods he once reviewed will be enough to bring him back. Especially when her own love of food makes her complicated relationship...

1928. At the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded, Maxine is doing everything she can to protect her younger sister Rose. Vicious attendants and bullying older girls treat them as the morons, imbeciles, and idiots the doctors have deemed them to be. Alice was left there when her brother couldn't bring himself to support a sister with a club foot. London was dragged there from the best foster situation she's ever had, thanks to one unexpected,...

Traces the author's surprise discovery that his late mother had had a sister who was sent away under mysterious circumstances and never mentioned by the family again, his efforts to research his long-lost aunt's story and whereabouts, and his struggles to understand the secrecy of her existence.