New York City journalist Verdi Leoni discovers that death looms near for the scavenger who rescued her from a garbage dump when she was a baby. So Verdi quits her job at the newspaper and returns to her native China to take care of the ailing woman. But there is someone else in Shanghai who needs Verdi even more – someone who is not so easy to love. It takes all the strength Verdi can muster to care for the caustic old man, who holds the power -- but no desire -- to bind the wound she harbors in the depths of her soul. With the unfolding of a number of staggering revelations, Verdi begins to understand that nothing she thought she knew can be taken for granted, not even the story of her own life