This is the story of Willis and Lila. Willis is a little girl who grows up in the turmoil of Jim Crow Virginia, whose White parents are manipulative and alcoholic. She spends her days with Lila, their Black housekeeper, who is warm and wise to the needs of children, who walks a delicate path between openness to Willis's questions and obedience to "the rules." Lila has a son, Eddie, and must juggle the needs of the two children. This is the story of childhood and adolescence in No One's Land, and Willis and Lila and Eddie are caught in the crosshairs of divergent emotions and possibilities.
This scene of the 1940s is interspersed with life 40 years later, when Lila is old and ailing. Willis returns to help her and finds herself in a strange new "university," with surprising things to learn. Eddie is dead, and Willis's child-love for Lila is no longer enough for a full reconnection. An old woman's need is not enough. The culture may have new laws, but few new behaviors, so once more there is a narrow path. You can feel the structure of race relations constraining every move people make. Can these two women really come to know one another?