This gripping, suspenseful novel of two brothers and their abusive father explores questions of faith and forgiveness.
After a gruesome murder, Phillip must finally face Michael alone for the first time in several months. His greatest fear is whether he can find any forgiveness for the years he remained silent, allowing his younger brother to suffer at the hands of Tony, their sadistic father.
Years before the killing, Tony accidentally discovered a letter written to his wife, proving that she had had a passionate relationship with someone named Samuel. Considering the humiliating possibility that Michael might not be his son, and consumed with rage, Tony's only ambition was to destroy the possible evidence of his wife’s affair.
Now Michael is nearly sixteen years old and in the hospital, barely alive. While sitting alone with his brother, Phillip is tormented by recurring memories he can’t seem to escape—and just when he realizes the hopelessness of his life without Michael, Samuel, the man who wrote the letter to the boys’ mother, arrives at the hospital. Samuel is confronted with the terrifying reality that he may have missed his only chance to meet the young man he suspects is his son, and refuses to abandon the boys to their barbaric life. Phillip and Michael have only known hatred in their lives, and Samuel and his wife want nothing more than to offer the brothers a chance to learn that love conquers all things—a reality Phillip must embrace if he is ever going to make peace with Michael, and himself, especially after the brutal death that changed everything.