But life is about to deliver a series of challenges that overturn Leroy s hard-won serenity and threaten to destroy his marriage and his family. Leroy s father, Earl, once so wise and invincible, is descending into the empty, helpless depths of senility, while his ill-tempered mother struggles with her own health problems. The marriage of a high school friend ends tragically. And Leroy wrestles with his own bitter secret his fierce resentment of his beloved wife s troubled past and of the other men who knew her before he married her."