After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to Cynthia, a working class white woman.
A mysterious stranger presents a boy with a VCR that can "play" the past...and the future. How it affects the boy and his struggling middle-class family is the central story.
Jimmy Harper (Gary Webster) loves to gamble and enjoys enough success to bring him to the attention of a group of men who play for big money. Soon Jimmy decides to change his name to James Harper, to reflect his increased importance, and seeks a way out of his job in a factory. However, as the stakes in the games increase, Jimmy/James may begin to wonder whether he is in over his head and has risked too much...
