It was 1947 in Celina, Ohio, when charismatic doctor and surgeon, Ralph Beare and his socialite wife, Lou, childless and in their early forties, adopted a four-and-a-half-month-old orphan they named Janice Lucinda. Janice-and everyone else-knew she was adopted, and everyone recognized Dr. Beare's Daughter on sight. With her red hair and freckles, she looked nothing like her dark-haired parents. She also said and did things her parents did not expect of their own child.

Finding herself an outlier in her family and at school, she struggled to be that elusive, golden child she imagined her parents really wanted, while also struggling with the strict rules of the Catholic Church and norms of Celina. Being Dr. Beare's Daughter came with an erasure of her own identity. Despite her efforts to be that perfect child, there was a small voice, deep inside her, that popped up at the most inconvenient times, saying, "I'm here." Try as she might to silence it, her true self sometimes slipped out to take charge, and then there was trouble.