Brenda Hasse
After her parents’ divorce, Jessica, age eleven, is responsible for overseeing the household and watching her younger siblings while her ever-absent mother manages her three businesses.At sixteen, she is introduced to Jim, nearly a decade older than she. Their friendship blossoms into a summer romance, which results in her pregnancy. Confident she can raise the baby with Jim’s support, she sets a goal to graduate from high school at age seventeen before the baby’s birth. Now a new mother, she works two jobs and attends community college for a semester before facing the reality her relationship with Jim is intolerable.Once obtaining an apartment of her own, Jessica works three jobs, yet she struggles to provide for herself and her daughter. Desperate and determined to succeed as a single mother, she answers an ad in the newspaper for a job that is too good to be true and is hired. Unable to meet the job’s daily sales quota, her boss insists additional training is needed. Reluctantly, Jessica concedes. She is driven far from home to an unknown location in Tennessee and forced to live in abhorrent conditions. Discovering she is trapped in a labor trafficking scheme, will she ever return home and see her sixteen-month-old daughter again?
