It takes her a few years, but Jan succeeds in making a new life for herself after her husband dies and she loses the hair salon she has owned and operated for over twenty years. With the help and support of her long-time employees, who have become close friends, she finds rewarding work, and becomes part of a new family, Years of often painful, but eventually successful, treatment for leukemia turned Nancy into a dependent, withdrawn stranger, and robbed her twin, nine-year-old Jan, of her closest friend and constant companion. When, at forty-seven, as orphans, and childless widows, their lives intersect again, Nancy insists that, a very reluctant, Jan take care of her. But Nancy finds a different protector, and Jan's life is changed in ways that she could never have imagined.