from Claire Walker: "I've heard it said that a particular scent can take you back in time quicker than anything else. I don't know if it was the smell of that wine, or the quick taste, but I didn't just go back in time-I reverted to the person I'd been months before. In an instant I came alive and crazily eager. I grabbed the car keys and my wallet. Just a few blocks down the street was a twenty-four-hour liquor store." Desperate moments such as this punctuate Claire Walker's days. Alcoholism has tainted her adult years and destroyed her marriage. At thirty-seven she fights back, determined to become the mother her children deserved but never had. As she struggles for sobriety, a good friend, Ziggy Estes, becomes her crutch, and the love of a younger man soothes her battered ego. But Claire realizes that if she is to own the victory, the battle must be hers alone.