Jude Calohan has been keeping his head down for years. In the quiet town of Bower Bliss, Texas, he has tried to be a good man, a good father, tried not to think too much about his relationship with his own father ... and yet despite this, in the gentle autumn of an uneventful year, Jude Calohan soon finds his relationship with both his eldest child and his own identity as a father called into question.<br><br>Amidst the sleepy apple groves of small town America, will Jude Calohan be able to keep his family together while his eldest child Charlie discovers the confidence to make one of the biggest choices of their young life?

Love Among Strangers

She sighed and placed her head against his chest.


“It’s not a phase, is it?” she asked quietly.


“I don’t know,” he whispered into the curls of her hair. “I want to believe it is, because it seems really stupid if it’s not, if it’s all one big thing that we’ve just been ignoring all his life.”


“He was so upset when you wouldn’t let him have that pony toy for his fifth birthday,” she remarked.


“And you sneaked into his room with that picture you drew and told him you owed him one little pony.”


She laughed, her breath warm against his chest.


“I remember that,” she said, and then slowly, she lifted her head, looking up towards him, meeting his gaze, “but wanting to play with girls’ toys, that doesn’t mean anything, does it? He’s still a boy, right?”


“He’s still Charlie,” he said, after a moment or two.


Again, his wife buried her head in his chest.


“Oh, Jude, I don’t want him to go through this; people are going to treat him so bad.”


Chapter 4