Ellen Tipping

The Sins of the Mother Ellen Tipping

It was her father's funeral. Fiona's son, Luke, with insight and eloquence, captured the exuberant essence of the man. Edward arrived late and stood anxiously at the back, his eyes locked on Luke as he spoke. His timing had been exquisite, painfully and tragically so. He left abruptly without speaking to the assembled family and friends. Who was this man? Why had he come?

Fiona was adjusting to a very different life in retirement. She was engaged with both ends of the age spectrum, reviving old friendships, and exercising. Ah, Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale." It reminded her of Teddy. She sat down on the park bench and took off her headphones, puffing slightly. The sun had come out. Teddy had taken a photograph of the three of them here under this beautiful elm. He had set up the camera on a tripod a few feet from where they sat on a rug with little Sophie. They were both looking up at the camera, smiling with infinite calm.

Increasingly dismayed by her son's distance and disdain and haunted by the past, Fiona had an imminent sense of her own mortality and a desperate need for resolution with her beloved son. The Sins of the Mother explores the fragility and complexity of family relationships. It is about the helplessness, confusion, and anger of old age. It is about a young child's unmediated experience of, and response to, his world. It is about regret and the resurrection of the past. It is about the pain of separation.