Deep in My Heart plot
Gerry Cummins, mother of three, is raped by a black man in 1961 after going to the cinema. She becomes pregnant and nine months later the baby turns out not to belong to her husband Bob, but to the rapist. As Boston is divided by race in the 1960s, Gerry and Bob decide to give up the baby, Barbara Ann, for adoption in order to give her a better life with a black family. Barbara Ann's childhood is far from stable, however: at seven she is taken from her loving black foster mother, Corrine, and adopted by a white family. Her new parents fail to understand that they've robbed Barbara Ann of the only home she's ever had and she becomes a quiet, introverted teenager. Years later, when Barbara Ann herself is a mother of five, her medical records are questioned and she searches for her birth mother and must make peace with her past.