Scheier's mother Judith was a news junkie, a hilarious storyteller, a fast-talking charmer, a single mother whose devotion crossed the line into obsession, and, when in the grips of the mental illness that plagued every day of her life, a violent and abusive liar whose hold on reality was shaky at best. On an uneventful afternoon when Scheier was eighteen, her mother sauntered into the room to tell her two important things: one, she had been married for most of Scheier's life to a man she'd never heard of, and two, the man she'd told Scheier was her father was entirely fictional. By the time she was done, she had built a farcical, half-true life for the two of them. One day twenty years later, Scheier receives a voicemail from Adult Protective Services, reporting that Judith has stopped paying rent and is refusing all offers of assistance. That call is the start of a shocking journey that takes mother and daughter deep into the cascading effects of decades of lies and deception.