In the Aftermath — Jane Ward

When David Herron -- overwhelmed and despairing, his family's business and
finances in ruin due to the bursting lending bubble of 2008 -- takes his
own life one chilly spring morning, he has no idea the ripple effect his
decision will set into motion.


Two years later, his widow, Jules, is now an employee of the bakery she
and David used to own -- and still full of bitterness over David's lies,
perceived cowardice, and ultimate abandonment of her and their
now-teenage daughter, Rennie. Rennie, meanwhile, struggles socially at
school, resents her work-obsessed mother, and is convinced she's to
blame for her father's death.


When Denise, the former police detective who worked (and, due to her own
personal struggles at the time, mishandled) David's case, catches sight
of Rennie at her sons' school, she's struck by the girl's halo of
sadness -- and becomes obsessed with attempting to right the wrongs she
believes she perpetrated two years ago.


And as all this unfolds in Boston, Daniel, the guilt-ridden young man
who, in his old life as a banker, helped create the circumstances that
led to David's suicide, continues to punish himself for his sins by
living half a life, working odd jobs and bouncing from one US city to
another, never staying long enough to make friends or build something
lasting.


Ultimately, each of these very different people -- all of them tied
together by one tragic event -- must learn in their own way how to say
good-bye to the past and move into a brighter future.