Halina, a volunteer aide at the hospital, sings Polish folk songs to patients who are too sick to notice. She lives in a neighborhood of Polish immigrants, all entrenched in Old Country ways, all as stubborn as she is. While her befuddled parents struggle with haunting war-era tragedies, Halina is saving her poker winnings for a train ticket to Anywhere. She wants to study nursing and get away from this stinking place. She's done scrubbing laundry for fifty cents a basket. Done with Pa's temper, the bruises, and Ma's excuses, too.But bootleggers come to town, setting up their warehouse in the cellar of the abandoned house next door. The whole town is on edge, caught in the tangled alliances and double crosses of gangs fighting for power. Prohibition casts an eerie shadow.Baba, Halina's mentor, tries to ward off the troubles the way she would ward off bad omens. Soon, the ailing old woman realizes her tonics and amulets are no match for the bootleggers. She taps young Halina to take over as town healer. But the new apprentice is unsure if she should trust Baba's mystical visions or the hospital's antiseptic book-learning. Eventually, instinct prevails, and she finds her own blend of medicine as she treats stabbings, addictions, breathing spells, and heart aches.Then, a life-or-death case tests Halina's ability-and convictions. She must decide how far she will go for one desperate patient, a party girl clinging to life. Will Halina steal hospital medicine? Perform surgery in the backroom of a hardware store? In this confrontation of Old and New, Halina learns that healing is about more than medicine, more than concoctions mixed in Mason jars or administered by a syringe. There has to be something to live for.
