Esme Lennox was left alone with her memories of her youth, her older sister Kitty and the brother who, as she claims, died in her arms. All these events come to life in her mind as if they happened yesterday. Kitty also thinks about Esme. But her memories are incoherent. It's a bizarre puzzle, the details of which don't always match what her sister tells me. Iris, the owner of a second-hand clothing store, learns that she is the guardian of Esme, with whom she never had anything in common. But it is from Esme that Iris learns the shocking details of her childhood and restores the complex history of her family.