Rebecca Lev, a Chicago psychotherapist, is balancing a heavy work load, two demanding kids, and an unhappy second marriage. When she learns that her father, Charlie, is in trouble, it is one more worry. He’s moved into a grand home in the Bay Area with a new wife, Vicky, and there are reports of her physically abusing him. Rebecca wants to save him, but they have grown apart and he rejects her offers of help. Charlie dies of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Rebecca strongly suspects that Vicky is implicated, but she has no proof. She tries to accept this but feels guilty that she didn’t better protect him. Vowing to find out what really happened, she returns to the Bay Area to investigate. At every turn she’s frustrated, and she flees to Clear Lake, the scene of happy childhood memories. She collapses there, unable to go further, and moves through the emotional chaos that has been building within her. At last she reaches a place of peace and resolution within herself. Now she has the strength to end her failed marriage and make the final push to discover the startling truth about her father.

Nan Fink Gefen is the author of Stranger in the Midst: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery (Basic Books, 1997) and Discovering Jewish Meditation (Jewish Lights, 2^nd edition 2011.) Her fiction and nonfiction articles have appeared in numerous publications. After fifteen years as a psychotherapist and teacher, she became the co-founder and publisher of Tikkun magazine. In 1996 she began teaching Jewish meditation, and she has trained hundreds of students in the Bay Area and nationally. In 2007 she founded Persimmon Tree: An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women over Sixty, where she remains as publisher. Nan lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, Jonathan Omer-Man; their blended family includes seven children and nine grandkids.