Susan Meissner has once again taken a real-life experience and made it come to life with engaging people to watch experience the event. This is the story of Sophie, an Irish immigrant living in a terrible tenement in New York City, who answers an ad for marriage to a widowed man with a young child in San Francisco.
Martin Hocking meets her train, and they go directly to city hall. Sophie insists upon having a photograph taken to commemorate the occasion. After that he brings her to a beautiful home to meet his 5-year-old silent daughter, Kat. Martin leaves them that night to go on a business trip. Sophia takes her responsibility to Kat seriously, and the bond between them grows, while interactions with Martin are stilted and cold.
On April 18, 1906 a pregnant woman named Belinda comes to the door looking for her husband. Sophie begins to put answers to questions she never fully acknowledged but now must face. As the two women piece together the information they have, the earth begins to quake. San Francisco sustains significant damage, and fires begin to rage. Sophie takes charge, making sure that Belinda and Kat are with her and taken care of. It is Sophie’s poverty history that helps make sure they all survive and continue to search for answers to questions asked before the quake.
It is the resilience of women, and the understanding of what is right and just, that brings the surprising ending – no spoilers here. This is a reminder that most things are not as they seem, and not all stories have a happy ending.
