Degrees of love

by Rachel Basch

Jack Keliher and Lily Sterne lead ordinary lives. But when their eighteen-month-old daughter, Katie, is accidentally burned while home alone with Lily and rushed to the hospital, their ordered world begins to unravel. An emergency room physician's report brings the state to take temporary custody of Katie, setting in motion a bureaucratic ordeal in which Lily and Jack are faced with every parent's worst fear: that their child will be taken away from them. Rachel Basch's narrative alternates between the voices of Jack and Lily as they reveal their increasingly divergent responses to the accident and its consequences. Their fierce struggle to keep their baby safe begins to take its toll on their relationship and their lives, and they are forced to grapple with the emotional, cultural, and spiritual differences that slowly drive them apart.