Pearl gradually comes to understand her mother Jiang Weili (Winnie) as a heroic survivor, not a troublesome anachronism, as they begin to reveal secrets about themselves to one another. Winnie tells the story of how she escaped a horrible marriage to a cowardly fighter pilot in the Sino-Japanese war and how he may or may not be Pearl's father. Meanwhile Pearl gathers the strength confide her great secret, that she has multiple sclerosis, to her mother.