Lucy Tucker has been on the streets of Chicago for 50 years. Why won't she come home? Fifteen-year-old Cindy worked long days beside her migrant worker family in Michigan's sugar beet fields in the early 1940s-the "war years"-until she met a dashing young man from a traveling carnival, bringing some joy and fun into her hard-scrabble life. But a tragic twist of fate-and a dead field boss-sent the two young people on the run, leaving behind family and everything she'd ever known. Lucy Tucker, the crotchety old bag lady from the popular Yada Yada House of Hope series, is a veteran of the Chicago streets and not about to give up her independence, even as she approaches her 80th birthday. Until, that is, a young displaced woman with her gentle ageing mother and a dog named Dandy seem to need her-unsettling the secretive Lucy, who doesn't let anyone get too close. But just when it seems her past is catching up with her to bring her in out of the cold ... Lucy disappears again. How these two tales intersect and intertwine between past and present gradually shines light into the dark corners of Lucy's murky past. But ... why won't Lucy come home?