Author(s): Yona Zeldis McDonough

World fiction

It's a beautiful summer's morning. Naomi Wechsler is at home, waiting for her husband, Rick, and their seven-year-old daughter, Dahlia, to return home from their shopping trip. Naomi takes a shower, potters round the house, waters the garden, and wonders, idly, what's taking them so long. Then the telephone rings. It's not Rick. It's the hospital. The very worst has happened. In a minor run-in with a SUV, Dahlia is pitched forward, and breaks her neck. Rick speeds to the hospital but by the time he arrives, it's too late. Dahlia is dead. In the aftermath of the accident, Rick and Naomi pull away from each other, the grief, guilt and overwhelming sorrow too hard to bear. Rick begins an affair with the office manager at his podiatry practice while Naomi finds solace in the arms of the doctor that delivered the news of her daughter's death. But then another tragedy occurs, and Rick and Naomi are forced to examine their behaviour and how deeply it has affected not only their lives, but the lives of those around them.