Mortal Memory

Steve Farris is an unexceptional middle-aged architect with an extraordinary past: when he was nine, his father came home one evening and coolly murdered his mother, brother and sister, before vanishing off the face of the earth. Steve has coped mainly by blotting out the terrible memories, but when writer Rebecca Soltero arrive to interview him about his father, he is forced to reawaken the horrors of his childhood. As Rebecca takes him back, probing his memory, unexpected new facts are revealed with disturbingly shocking parallels to his current situation. Steve knows that if he is to find out whether he too is heading down the road to tragedy, he must discover the truth about his past.

amie and my  mother, Laura died at approximately four in the  afternoon. It was almost two hours later that Mrs.  Hamilton, a neighbor from across the street, saw my  father drive away. During those long two hours in  which he remained in the house, my father washed my  mother's body and arranged her neatly on the bed.  After that, he made a ham sandwich and ate it at  the table in the kitchen. He drank a cup of coffee,  leaving both the plate and the cup in the sink. He  didn't pack anything, because he left with  nothing. He didn't reenter either Laura's of Jamie's  room. He made no attempt to clean up the frightful  mess that had been made of them. And yet, for no  apparent reason, he remained in the house for a full  two hours. What had he been waiting for?