Not Today

After the death of his older brother in Iraq, Emmett Callaghan's mother cracked under the stress and abandoned the family—saddling sixteen-year-old Emmett with the care of a father suffering from worsening dementia. Poor in a town where the lines between the privileged and the struggling are sharp and unmovable, Emmett has nowhere to turn, and he cannot let the authorities know his mother is no longer in the picture.

Then a light shines into his bleak life with the arrival of Noah Davis. Mix...