A wonderful story that when I started reading didn’t expect to like! Two women from very different places in their lives, come together around the person of a bright lad, Jamal. Deirdre is the childless Head Mistress of a school in a US city, but it could as easily be set in the UK. She has never told her loving husband, an army sergeant, that she knows she is unlikely to have the children they both long for. Kenisha is the mother of three children by different fathers, struggling to bring them up in a spotless home, giving them love, teaching them and encouraging them to be upright citizens, against heavy odds – her family are dysfunctional to say the least. Kenisha has not been feeling well and when she goes to a doctor is diagnosed as having terminal cancer. This sets the scene for what follows. A complicated weaving together of two families lives, beautifully and movingly described without avoiding any of the serious issues.