Imagine a new life. Maxine Carter suddenly finds herself searching for a fresh start—a way around her own gnawing fear of an untimely death and a wasted life. What she discovers is her neighbour's nine-year-old son, Kyle. As Maxine becomes the boy's constant companion and as Kyle deals with his parents' increasing absence and with life as an outsider in a new city, he slowly manages to reinvent Maxine's real and imaginative life. Smart, funny, and poignant, Claire Wilkshire's impressive debut is a novel about overcoming personal fears in a world wracked by private loss and public anxiety, and about finding friendship in the most unlikely places.