FernFolio

Estranged from his mother, neglected by his truck-driver father, and entirely responsible for his eleven year-old deaf sister, Kat, fifteen year-old Darcy struggles to cope with almost overwhelming emotional pain. Despite the efforts of his teacher, Ms. Rose, at the alternative school where he’s been sent because of his unwillingness – or inability – to establish social relationships with others, and the caring of Gem, a classmate who keeps reaching out even when he rejects her, Darcy is unable to stop himself from throwing up walls. He loves and trusts only two people, his sister, Kat, and young Sam, the four year-old deaf girl he baby sits after school each day.
Darcy’s life begins to spin out of control when he learns that his mother, sent to prison for throwing Kat off an apartment balcony when he was four, is going to be paroled and wants to see him and his sister. Their father makes it clear that he expects Kat, with whom he has never felt comfortable and never bothered to learn to communicate with, to go to live with her mother. Darcy is torn between his refusal to have anything to do with his mother, and his fear that he will lose contact with Kat.
Things become far more complicated when Sam makes an accusation against Darcy that leaves him isolated and bewildered. Then a sudden flashback to the day of Kat’s fall from that apartment balcony brings another shocking revelation.
To deal with his feelings of fear and guilt and loss of control and isolation, and although he’s promised Kat to stop, Darcy begins to self-mutilate. It is only when he acknowledges that he needs the help of those who care about him, and accepts that help, that Darcy can put the past behind him and begin to heal.
FernFolio Editor