The moment four-year-old Emmy finds her mother motionless on the floor has overshadowed her whole life. The child must navigate a strange world without her mother by her side, a world she doesn't understand, and where all the important people and everything she can rely on keeps changing. Her father is there but is broken by the sudden death of his wife. Vulnerable and unprotected, her nanny is her safety net for many years. But then she is dismissed and Emmy's world becomes even darker. 

As an adult, Emily carries the weight of that burden. It is only in her artwork that she can truly express her emotion and start to process some of what has shaped her. Her work and her thinking develop from a visual miscellany of 'things', of a surface way of relating to the world, to deeper meaning: emotions that risk exploring how so much loss and absence begins to define presence. Thus she tries to find her own way of healing. 

This book explores how a devastating, traumatic childhood event can profoundly affect relationships, perceptions, and boundaries but also how it can be the source of great creativity.