A Course In Miracles: Ruth put her daughter up for adoption some 18 years ago. Living on her own after running away from home, Ruth found herself pregnant thanks to a night of naiveté and what she felt was obligatory sex. She was in no condition to raise a child, being only a child herself really. She named the baby Heather, and handed her over to be adopted. Ever since, she’d ached to know where her little girl was.
Hiring a private investigator was the first step. And he’d found her. Or at least, he’d found her adoptive family. Heather had recently run away. Once again, an 18-year-old girl was out on the road. Ruth just knew that Heather was going to end up exactly like she did…lost, confused, and pregnant. Feeling that she knew where Heather might have gone, Ruth sets out to rescue her daughter. Tracing the same path she’d taken as a runaway, Ruth revisits the highway exit ramps of Rte. 80 across Pennsylvania, facing the shadows of memories of her own experiences. The nights sleeping in the bushes on the hard ground, the days spent keeping ahead of the creeps and the cops. Will Ruth be able to catch up with Heather before it is too late? Is Heather truly following in her mother’s footsteps along the highway and into hiding in New York City?
This trip and the memories trigger emotional reactions in Ruth that she cannot hide from her husband. Jack knows nothing of Heather and the truth will set him on a path of distrust, despair and mourning for what he thinks is his marriage lost. Ruth confides in her cleaning lady, a young girl of 18 herself, that she is desperate to find her runaway daughter before anything terrible happens to her. Kim has her own troubles, being pregnant and unmarried, and she and Ruth form a bond over their shared pain.
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