The Law of Diminishing Returns

Meg Stanley is a go-getter... always has been. Her penchant to improve leads her to success at work, in love, even towards physical perfection. Together with her friends and family she experiences an entitled life, on her terms, but lacking the satisfaction she desires.

Vatusia Macon considers herself a typical, perhaps even lucky, Ivorian. Most people of her village have suffered loss, so her travails, shocking and abhorrent from a Westerner's perspective are answered with a fatalistic determination to go on. Her son is her life and reason for living above all else so her world is rocked when he is presented with the opportunity to live in the United States.

The unlikely pair are eventually united by fate, their stories interwoven like the fabric Vatusia creates to survive. Their strengths and weaknesses form the cornerstone on which a relationship that changes both of their lives is built. Along the way, we meet and learn to love and despise the people in their lives who shape and guide them in the ways of good and evil. This is the story of two fascinating women, the lives they lead and the people they touch.