River grew up poor in a small town in the country. Her father, an abusive alcoholic, left when she was seven, leaving her mother to bring up River and her three younger sisters. Sandra, her mother, struggled to keep the girls fed, clothed, and cared for, and spent their childhood in and out of hospital, leaving River to take care of herself and her sisters. She grew up fast. Too fast. A bright but troubled girl, River started smoking and drinking alcohol at 13, and on her 16th birthday, she left in the middle of the night.

Out on her own, she learned quickly how to get by, how to find a place to stay, how to keep moving. She walked, hitch-hiked and hopped trains across the country, earning money any way she could - bar work, sex work, farm work, you name it - and has become a paradox. Independent but vulnerable, sweet but vicious, feisty, and caring.

As she got off the train in Woodcrest, a little money in her pocket, she hoped that this might be the place she felt she could call home. Maybe even go to college.