Dad looked down at us and spoke slowly.

"I''m sorry to be late, but something terrible has happened. It''s about your mother."

Barry grows up in the long shadows cast by his older brother and Vermont''s Green Mountains. He must deal with his father and the horrible message he delivers. Barry lets off steam on ball fields and basketball courts, hunts the local woods, fishes nearby streams and rivers, gets his first job, and buys his hunting rifle. In this New England coming of age story, Barry leaves behind the questions that troubled him throughout high school and college. But following his father''s death, he faces the question that has lingered his entire life.