While other little girls were playing with dolls and kitchenttes, Sydelle was learning to cook and clean in a real kitchen as the 'pretend wife' of a crude old man. This courageous and moving story chronicles how one child was subjected to sexual and mental abuse at the hands of someone she loved and admired. Sydelle was forced to hide her emotions as she interacted with her assailant day in and day out in social situations; while fearing night fall and his constant advances. This is an intense, endearing tale of survival in a powerfully moving spiritual journey of one girl's struggle to become a woman even through the devastation of abuse.