Sara Barefield

Sara wants this baby more than she has ever wanted anything. Sara has worked her entire life to overcome the name Barefield. To be a Barefield in the rural Virginia county where she grew up means that you are the poorest of the poor, that you are shiftless and untrustworthy, lazy and stupid. Sara has succeeded in proving that she is none of those things. At the age of forty she has a nice apartment, a decent car, and a good job as a school secretary. Tully Rutland, the father of Sara's baby, dies before she tells him that she's pregnant. The Rutlands have never approved of Sara, and she knows they will do whatever they can to interfere with the raising of the child now that he is gone. She feels that her only choice is to move away so she can make a new life for herself and her baby beyond the reach of the Rutlands. Sara has practically no savings and no one to support her. She knows she will have to go on welfare, but she escaped poverty once and believes she can do it again. After a lifetime of taking pride in her honesty, she has to lie when she fills out forms for aid, and she risks going to jail to get food. But no matter how difficult her life becomes, she doesn't give up. Sara fights her way out of poverty, a journey that leads her to success beyond anything she had dreamed possible.