Description
Mark Aherne, a middle-aged man, receives an emergency phone call to come to his parents' home as soon as possible. Once there he can no longer avoid the fact that his elderly parents need help if they are to continue living independently. Over time, with equal amounts of love and irritation, he helps with their health problems, the onset of dementia, life in a nursing home, and death. Meanwhile, he remembers his changing relationship with his parents throughout his childhood, his teenage years, and his life as a husband and father. Facing his own lost opportunities and the inexorable passage of time, he comes to realize that he's not so different from his parents as he once thought. Mark comes face-to-face with a revelation about each parent's life, information that illuminates how a single moment has lifelong effects.
Prologue
