My mother's island

"Burdened with a terrible secret she has kept for over forty years, Sarah Ellis travels to Puerto Rico to tend to her widowed mother, Reba, who is dying of cancer. As Sarah arrives at her mother's modest retirement bungalow in a working-class neighborhood, she is consumed with anxiety, afraid that she will not be able to minister to this woman, from whose touch she recoils.". "While caring for her mother, Sarah has a series of vivid flashbacks that reveal the troubled history of the Ellis family, including episodes of abuse. In these revived memories, Sarah relives her childhood trauma and moves toward a deeper understanding of her mother as well as the parental tensions that clouded her youth."--BOOK JACKET.