A light in the darkness for severely troubled children, former special education teacher Torey Hayden faced three of her most extraordinary challenges after she left the classroom Nine-year-old Cassandra, kidnapped by her father and found starving, dirty, and picking through garbage cans -- a child prone to long silences and erratic, violent behavior, whose hard-won recollections of the nightmare she endured could not be fully trusted. Charming, charismatic four-year-old Drake, who would speak only in private to his mother -- his tough, unbending grandfather's demands for an immediate cure threatened to cause the delightful boy and his family irreparable harm. And though she had never worked with adults, Hayden agreed to help fearful and silent eighty-two-year-old massive stroke victim Gerda -- discovering in the process that a treatment's successes could prove nearly as heartbreaking as its limitations.