For Bill, the end has always been in view. His life has seen a series of
unlikely extensions. When he was young, he hated his father and
contemplated suicide. Later in his life he was diagnosed with leukemia
and expected to die within months. Bill's childhood was spent on a
communal evangelical mission, but eventually Bill began to question his
parents' strict religious beliefs. His father reacted with violence and
Bill felt trapped between the dishonesty of trying to conform to his
parents' beliefs and the conviction that he was doomed to hell for
questioning them. Eventually he provokes his father into a confrontation
that leads to an outcome that redefines their relationship and alters
the course of both of their lives. By midlife, Bill has been married for
twenty years and has his own family. The challenges he has faced at sea
as chief engineer on tugboats have helped him heal. His thoughts of
suicide have faded. His father's recent descent into Alzheimer's Disease
has created an avenue for the reconciliation the two have worked on for
years. Then, unexpectedly, a story emerges about his father, involving
his sister, and Bill is confronted once again with the dark side of his
father's personality.
