To escape a scandal that sent her husband into exile, Estela abandons the safety of her hometown and travels with her infant son to the roaring nineteenth-century metropolis of Mexico City. Hoping to begin her life anew, Estela declares herself a widow and goes in search of her former lover - and only true love. Estela's romantic ideals are quickly destroyed; her lover is married, and Estela realizes that to be a woman in Mexico "without family was...