A Garden of Aloes

This is a story about starting over, something many woman have thought about but fewer attempt. After all, when you are living in a grand house in Santa Rosa, California, have two young daughters, many friends and all the accoutrements of wealth, how many people would throw all that away to escape from an abusive husband who will not grant you a divorce? And how do you explain this to your children, particularly when you have to go into hiding, are close to penniless, can afford nothing more expensive than quarters in the Oasis, a seedy motor court in a disreputable part of Tucson? And how does one deal with a child's anger over this fall from what she considered to be grace?

It's a story told in the voices of five women: There is Leslie, starting over, and her daughters 11 year-old-Sam (Samantha) and her older sister Audrey; Dee, the 400 pound Jesus-loving manager of the Oasis; Eden, a topless dancer neighbor who befriends Leslie and her bi-racial daughter Chablee who tries to teach Audrey the ropes. All of these women do what they must to get by, all prove to be survivors, and each has a distinct voice.

This unlikely cast of very real characters manages to form their own family unit and rise, supportively, from individual isolation after severing ties with their painful pasts, by putting one foot in front of the other as they rebuild their collective lives.