"When two Depression-era migrant workers, Paul and Vern, find an abandoned baby in the woods, they take it upon themselves to care for the mysterious child. When fifteen-year-old Marigold, reviled by her family after an unwanted pregnancy, loses her baby in the forest, her whole world is painted black. She's still fraught with despair when she discovers what seems to be a miraculous power within her. Coot, a child preacher on the Kansas plains, escapes the outfit that's been handling him--and takes the collection plate full of money with him. As the years pass, these stories intertwine in surprising ways--proving how ugly circumstances can produce beautiful people"--