Only one real memory with her mother young Ruby standing in front of a bookstore, holding the hand of a woman in a red coat. After being rescued and taken in by servants, Ruby feels safe for a time. Then in 1920, during the hard winter in New York City, eleven-year-old Ruby is sent packing from the mansion where she’s been a servant since the age of six. A bleak future forces her to sneak onto a train where she discovers hope in Denton, Texas—only to have her newfound happiness shaken to the core when a poor working class section of town known as Quakertown is razed, causing black families to lose their homes. Now, Ruby must choose between the new family she has come to love and the place where people say she belongs.