Gene, a most enterprising young man flees security toward the unknown dependent only upon his own ingenuity. He lands in the middle of the red light district of Albany Georgia and becomes an integral part of Madame Valdimer's household. Meanwhile, Sarah, snatched from this very house only a short time before, is separated from family, handed into servitude, used, and abused. Fate helps her to escape and she rushes back to the house where she meets Gene. Amid the backdrop of a great depression, in a changing nation that moves rapidly from horse power to horsepower, to air power, and war, two children, lost to those they were born to, torn from those they lived with, find refuge in a most ludicrous place where they create family. A struggle to survive becomes a struggle to succeed supported by the most unlikely cast. Here they learn from those with no past how to forge a future.