Swim Back to Me — Ann Packer

A wife struggles to make sense of her husband's sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother's wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy -- and vulnerability -- of fatherhood. And, in the masterly opening novella, two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.