In February 1979, when Afschineh Latifi was just ten years old, her father, a colonel under the Shah of Iran, was imprisoned by Khomeini's soldiers. Afschineh and her three siblings were left in the care of their mother, who did everything in her power to free her husband from jail, and who struggled to survive in a newly fundamentalist society that was openly hostile to women. In the torturous weeks and months that followed, Mrs. Latifi and her husband communicated by writing notes to each other on tiny squares of paper, and bribing the guards to pass them back and forth. "Mommie joon'e azizam ghorbanat," Colonel Latifi wrote in one of them. "My beloved for whom I would give my life. Please take care of the children ... Do not worry about me. I am well." The situation continued to deteriorate, however, both in and out of prison. Mrs. Latifi was verbally abused whenever she showed her uncovered head. Armed guards took to following her and the children everywhere, even to school. Turbaned men arrived in the middle of the night to search the house. In late May, Colonel Latifi was executed, shot with little fanfare on a prison rooftop, and the story begins. Fearing for the safety of her daughters, Mrs. Latifi made a heartrending decision: She sent Afschineh and her sister, Afsaneh, abroad, knowing it might be years before she embraced them again -- if ever.