 After the death of her closest two friends, young Daphne Lessing suffers a loss of faith, then a lapse in memory. Confronted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and a pregnancy she neither planned nor is able to explain, Daphne is forced into a terrible choice: lose her child or lose her mind. "The Substance of Things Hoped For" traces Daphne s desperate search for the past she cannot recall, the father she never had, and the child she may never know.