As a young girl, Alma Belasco is forced to leave Poland at the start of WWII and becomes a part of her wealthy uncle's family in San Francisco. Ichimei Fukada is the young son of her uncle's gardner. They become fast friends but are separated when Ichimei and his family are sent to the Topaz camp.
As the title suggests, they meet again but neither has the courage to make their relationship public. Not much new in that story but Alma's story is not so straight forward which is perhaps why Allende chose to tell it backwards. We first meet Alma near the end of her life. She has chosen to live in a quirky retirement home rather than in her opulent family home. She has befriended one of the staff, Irina, who has her own interesting back story. Irina and Alma's grandson, Seth, are determined to find the reason behind Alma's occasional disappearances and the gifts that arrive unsigned. And it is through their efforts that all the secrets are revealed. The characters are likeable and the story surprising in some ways but the writing seemed too spare - too simple a translation maybe - just nothing beautiful. She has written better.
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