A Novel by Usha Alexander
South India. Early 1940s. Sita, an illiterate girl, is given as a child bride to a boy with a secret that threatens to bring shame upon his family. Finding herself in a marriage without intimacy, she struggles to transcend her circumstances. She learnes to read and weave, finding joy and solace at her loom, and release in a brief, forbidden relationship.

Yet, alongside her fame as a weaver of tapestries, Sita's anger and frustration grow as she feels thwarted within the confines of her family life. Then a roll of events, in which she participates, ends with grave tragedy and a complete unraveling of her spirit.

But when her brother invites her to America to care for his motherless children, fraught with their own conflicts of identity and culture, Sita hopes for a new chance at life. Years later, approaching death in old age, she asks herself, "What has my life been worth? What lessons can be drawn from it?"

Spanning two generations and two cultures, this deeply affecting story, rich in character and incident, peers through those veils that separate one from another and blind us to each other's wonder and human plight.