Distant Relative - Paperback

by Joseph Helensky (Author)

What do you owe your past when it has ruined someone's present?

Mistakes don't fade away. They come back when we least expect it.

Jeffrey Weston and Bridgette Davis once loved each other. They envisioned a life together. But they blew it all up. One small piece of their relationship remained in Bridgette's belly.

Now, married and living in Seattle, Jeffrey signs up for a genealogy website, looking for his birth parents. Simultaneously, in Baltimore, 18-year-old Catherine, a girl of grit, who has survived several stints in foster care because of her mom's addictions, signs up to try to find the absentee father that abandoned her mom while she was pregnant.

A "message received" ping changes both of their lives forever.

Jeffrey must confront his past, face unresolved guilt over a failed adoption, and come to terms with how things have unfolded as a result of his actions.

Catherine must reconcile the deadbeat father she has heard about her entire life with the real Jeffrey, and how different his cushy life is, from the one she's lived, at the mercy of social workers, and the bad hand her mother was dealt.

Can you make something right years later? Would you make the same choices?

Distant Relative explores what family really means, how our loved ones can hurt us most, and the perilous balance between past mistakes and future consequences.