After retiring from his career in construction and trying to cope with the death of his wife, Isaac York experiences an infatuation for a lifelong male friend and discovers his world fills with sunflowers and a risqué transition. Isaac moves to Lake Samoy in search of a new life, to abandon his past, and to start a fresh relationship with a famous and sexy man named Nebraska Close, whom he falls head over heals for.<br><br>Nebraska Close, a professional photographer who is drawn to summer nights and a younger man’s skin, finds pleasure for a second time in his life. Unconditionally he falls for Isaac and mixes together his lust, photography of sunflowers, and homosexual longing.<br><br>Isaac's son, Nicholas, lives at Lake Samoy and doesn't understand his father's lack of interest in his mother's fatal illness. With the help of Nebraska Close, Nicholas confronts his father’s sexuality, and Isaac learns to love his son again.

Nebraska Close

Enough. It’s time to exit the lake and search out his work inside the cottage, again. It’s time to draw his Jesus-like hands against his sides, keeping his palms flat against his hips, bend his knees, and push off the lake’s bottom, careening through the water like a bullet, rising through the liquid, now the lake’s calm surface, obtaining oxygen—life, again. And now, inhaling…exhaling…inhaling…exhaling…he begins to swim to the rocky shore, returning to his cottage, his work, his passion, kicking up water, heading south, gliding on the water’s surface until he comprehends that he can touch bottom, where it’s safe to stand, walking the rest of the distance to shore. 


Chapter 7