Neil Ellis Orts's beautiful novella tells a powerful story of family and friendship, love and loyalty, faith and fidelity in their various incarnations. The letters exchanged between Cary and John are spare and true, poignant in the things that are said as well as left unsaid. The fateful confrontation between the daughters of these good men is both harrowing and a tonic for the truth. Orts creates an opera of ordinary voices, skillfully interweaving present-day narrative with the voices of the past until the two separate stories become one. A fine novella by a fine writer, its music stays with you well after the book is closed.
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell, author of Lovers' Almanac and Still Pilgrim
Faithfulness is the engine of love. It drives us toward our choices. It steers us over complicated roads. What we feel and fear, what we long for, who we pray to. Through parallel, intergenerational stories Neil Ellis Orts explores the many ways that hearts entangle, and how we survive those entanglements: we love.
Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of Hausfrau