Lynnie and Homan run away from the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, looking for something they can't articulate but know instinctively when they find it. Martha is a retired teacher; childless and widowed, living alone and never one to take risks. She decides, impulsively, to help them and finds herself taking on the role of fugitive, surrogate, grandmother to Lynnie's child.
Taken back to the school, bound and frightened, Lynnie and Homan are separated, neither knowing what has become of the other, nor what has happened to the child. Years pass, and apparently insurmountable obstacles divide them, but fate decides that constancy in love will be rewarded.
This should be a mawkish tale, but it isn't. Rachel Simon has researched the history of institutions where people with disabilities of all kinds were sent to be forgotten in the mid-20th century and has written a true to life story without over sentimentality. Informative read. Not bad.
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