Some seemingly preordained lives end up elsewhere entirely when a person manages to break the mold. Mary's mold was broken from the outside. When the unthinkable happened in her traditional southern family, Mary's quiet childhood was transformed into a journey of discovery amidst the world around her and of all the potential that lay within her.

Soon after her father, a beloved preacher in her close-knit Tennessee community, came out as a gay man at the height of the AIDS epidemic, Mary's mother, feeling betrayed and unable to deal with this new reality, embarked Mary and her siblings on a years-long cross-country odyssey—which would eventually land them in California—through New York, Nevada, and many other places. 

Mary, a sweet, innocent, and precocious child at the beginning of this adventure, had little idea of the transformation she was about to undergo. She would emerge stronger, wiser, and much better prepared for all that awaited her in life, from those travels through aqua, green, and blue...