Memories Are Made of This

Adele Thornton's father walked out of her life when she was five leaving her and her mother, Carol, completely destitute. Carol used the only resource she had to make a living for herself and her daughter: her body. Night after night, Adele watched the parade of men whose 'visits' with her mother put food on the table and paid the rent for their dilapidated one-bedroom apartment with only a sheet hung between her bed and her mother's. Sometimes, one of Carol's men friends would move in for a while and Adele would find it difficult to stay out of the reach of her newest 'uncle'. Then Adele found she had an admirer of her very own; a nineteen-year-old with a motorcycle who, unknown to Adele, was primarily interested in taking away her childhood innocence. She and her mother fought that morning and that afternoon her mother was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Adele had come home from school and could remember nothing until moments before she was being arrested for murder. The cops told her she did it and after five hours of grilling, she gave up and said she guessed she had. Now, after twenty-seven years in prison, somebody finally believed she was innocent; but could they prove it? And, if they did, would she be able to survive in an adult world she knew nothing about?