Thomas Fillion

New England Book of the Dead Thomas Fillion

In New England Book of the Dead, Robert Fortier escorts his legally blind, eighty-eight year old father, Roland, from Florida to Vermont to see his father's sister, Alma, before she dies in the hospital. It's the longest time he has spent with his father since growing up and traveling the world. He has an aversion to family events and planned on spending Thanksgiving with his wife in Pensacola when the call from the doctor came that Alma had a few days to live. When they arrive in Burlington, Robert calls Alma's house where she and another brother, Edmund, lived for forty years together. Neither one ever married and that always puzzled Robert. He thought it had something to do with the death of their younger brother, Garfield, who perished along with three others in a horrific automobile accident shortly after he returned from the Korean War almost sixty years ago. Edmund answered the phone and didn't remember they were coming. Robert knew then that this was going to be a memorable trip especially when he walked into Alma's bedroom to put his luggage there and saw one small portrait picture taped to her mirror staring at him. It was his picture that he sent her many years ago. She put it there for a reason. She was waiting for him to help them through this ordeal. There was no way now that he could refuse.