As Silvie grows up, her talent as an artist flourishes, and she eventually moves to New York, where she finds work for a high-profile home decorating magazine. There, she's able to grow up and out, away from her mother and the pressures of home, finding solace in her painting. Silvie's memories of her mother -- her revelations about Elvis, the locket and pictures she reveals at a dinner party, her attention-getting outfits, her relentless demands for control. In New York, Silvie meets a doctor named Scottie, and she longs to share her happiness with her mother, only to discover that the mother she's beginning to understand has cancer. With her own adult life just beginning, Silvie must take on the most difficult venture of her life, caring for her mother, planning a wedding, and resolving some of the conflicts with her mother before she dies.