In Northeast Ohio, the cold arrives like a verdict. Devin McCorty is fifteen, caught between a father who found God and a mother who found something else. She is homeless now, addicted, and sleeping in a tent in Akron. The first freeze of the year is tonight, and Devin can't sit still, plotting a rescue.

The opening story of Faded Flowers, Wilted Weeds — a collection following two families across a century, and the bitterness each generation either overcomes or carries forward.