A Distant Island

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Patrick Ashtre was a happily married man with a lovely wife, three children, and a house in Arlington, Virginia. He was a good father and husband and, looking into the mirror each morning, he was happy with the reflected image--but all that was about to change.

There are events that change people forever--a friend's premonition about the future that comes true, shaking the very fibers of our beliefs about the world around us, or a traumatic episode that ...