In 1917 inflation hits the coal regions of North America especially hard. Poor families are forced to make difficult choices. Wasyl doesn’t know how to help his widowed mother and sisters. He has so many questions. He wishes he had a father to advise him, but Wasyl’s father is a big secret that no one ever mentions. Is a nine-year-old boy too young to quit school and work in the mines? There is so much he doesn’t understand. Then one day the truth about Wasyl’s father comes out in the most traumatic way.
Is it kinder to keep secrets, or to deal with them honestly and openly even if they hurt? Wasyl is about to find out.