Indigo/Genesis Press, 2009. ISBN 978-1-585-71367-7. Reviewed by Sharon Wildwind Posted on 01/03/2010 Fiction: Romance

People die at home without home care or hospice nurses, cared for by their family and friends. This is the story of one such death.

Kelvin Price's lung cancer has spread. The thing he wants most before he dies is to see the son he walked out on twenty years earlier.

Sean Price has waited for a phone call from his father for two decades. He has multiple fantasies about how he would answer the call, all involving revenge scenarios. When the call finally comes, he's surprised to discover that what surfaces is a sense of obligation. Kelvin Price is the only father he will ever have. He must go to him.

Chelly Whitaker, Kelvin's landlady and upstairs neighbor, shepherds their reunion. Chelly is a middle-aged woman who never recovered from the death of her husband, eight-month-old daughter, and mother-in-law in a plane crash ten years earlier. They only thing that keeps her sane—if you can call it sanity—is visits from her daughter's ghost. She sees the child not as the infant she was when she died, but as a bright five-year-old.

This moving romance combines the paranormal; a search for love despite age differences (she's forty-two; he's thirty-three); and the beauty and relevance of ordinary activities, like making chicken soup for a sick man. It's a wonderful story of ordinary people showing extraordinary love and forgiveness.

Pamela Ridley's writing credits include two novels: Between Tears (April 2006) and Lies Too Long (May 2007) published by Genesis Press. Her body of work also includes short stories and flash fiction published through various e-zines. Ms. Ridley resides in Maryland. Visit her web site.

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