The year was 1957. Simon Pendagayosh and Carolina Shaugobay meet outside a variety store on a Saturday trip to town while attending St. Mary's Mission School, a Catholic boarding school for Native students. Simon, thirteen years of age, and Carolina, fourteen, fall in love.
The boarding school era had a devastating effect on many Native people, designed to dispossess them from their communities, assimilate them into non-Native society, and erase their Native identities. St. Mary's, like most Native boarding schools in the day, prohibited Native children from speaking their languages or practicing their culture. Many suffered abuse in all its forms. Carolina was traumatized by horrific abuse at the school. Simon's life was forever affected by what happened. Follow their divergent paths as they walk through life.Yet, despite it all, there was love: "Still, it was love. I cannot lessen or deny it was, that young love is entitirely possible, indeed. That if Juliet, justst thirteen years of age, and Romeo, at justst sixteen years, could have such a love, we could as wellll. That it was as real as anything I have experienced the whole of my lifetitime." -Carolina