Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of sexual assault, infertility issues, and disordered eating and exercise.

Kerry Washington opens her memoir by describing how, on April 3, 2018, she received a text from her mother asking where she was and saying they needed to talk. Kerry was driving near the CBS Radford Studio Center (in Sherman Oaks, California), home to Simpson Street, her production company that she named for her mother’s childhood street in the Bronx.

Simpson Street was working on a new pilot several weeks after Kerry had finished shooting her final scenes in the TV show Scandal. Working on the show had given Kerry stability since she was the lead, and it ran for seven seasons. However, she also describes the “profound cultural impact” it had because it featured women as central characters, portrayed an abortion procedure on screen, and showed that a show in which the lead was a woman of color could succeed. After the show’s final season, Kerry feels like she had lost a major anchor in her life.

She decided to go to the condo where her parents stayed when they were in Los Angeles. Kerry purchased it when she first started coming out to Los Angeles regularly.