Three native American women gather for a ceremony at a cabin on the Red Pheasant Cree Indian Reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada, in the 1990s. The eldest, Mariah, is a healer. Clara is an Indian activist who has survived the experience of growing up in a residential school. Kendra is her best friend’s daughter, now a doctor. They have come to Mariah to participate in the burial ceremony for another of Clara’s classmates named Lily, who died at the school. As they bury her remains, Clara says, “I couldn’t leave you there after what they did to you. We finally got to go home. You and me both” (3).

The story goes back in time to the early 1960s in coastal British Columbia to follow the experiences of 10-year-old Kenny. Like all his classmates, he was torn away from his family at the age of six to attend a government-mandated Indian Mission School, where the students are supposedly assimilated into mainstream culture. The children are denied contact with their birth families for years at a time, and some never see their relatives again.

Kenny has formed a bond with a female student named

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