Footprints

In her new novel, Shelly Hearon deals with how the comfortable compromise of a couple's long-term marriage is torn apart by the accidental death of their twenty-two-year old daughter.

The rueful truce between the Mayhalls begins to unravel the evening they find themselves at a barbecue celebration in Houston, Texas, for the relatives of organ donors and the grateful recipients. Here they come face to face with the aging southern preacher whose life has been saved by the gift of their daughter's heart.

The wholly different ways this thoughtful scientific couple respond to this macabre encounter - Nan, in denial, retreating to the safety of the past; Douglas, in the here and now, emotionally distraught at the idea that part of his daughter lives on in this frail man - force Nan to recognize the perilous gulf between them.

Seeking escape, Nan flees to the shell-strewn beaches of Sanibel Island, while Douglas waits out a bitter New York winter seeking the warmth of someone new. But it takes another life-threatening event to allow them to step out of their own footprints and let the healing - both for them and for their surviving son - begin.