In this explo­sive debut nov­el, Neil Abram­son explores the beau­ty and redemp­tive pow­er of human-ani­mal rela­tion­ships, the impor­tance of faith, and the true mean­ing of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in all of its diverse forms.

As a vet­eri­nar­i­an, Hele­na was required to choose when to end the lives of the ter­mi­nal­ly ill ani­mals in her care. Now that she has died, she is afraid to face them and final­ly admit to her­self that her thir­ty-sev­en years of life were mean­ing­less, error-rid­den, and for­get­table. So Hele­na lingers, a silent observ­er haunt­ed by the life she left behind — her shat­tered attor­ney hus­band, David; her house­ful of dam­aged but beloved ani­mals; and her final project, Cindy, a chim­panzee trained to use sign lan­guage who may be able to unlock the mys­ter­ies of ani­mal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and con­scious­ness.

When Cindy is sched­uled for a research exper­i­ment that will undoubt­ed­ly take her life, David must call upon every­thing he has learned from Hele­na to save her. In the explo­sive court­room dra­ma that fol­lows, all the threads of Helena’s life entwine and tear as Hele­na and David con­front their mis­takes, grief and loss and dis­cov­er both the impor­tance of faith and what it real­ly means to be human.