Love in the Present Tense

by: Catherine Ryan Hyde

Published by: Vintage Press

Reviewed by Linda Lee

At thirteen years old, Pearl gets pregnant. On the same day she accidentally kills the baby’s father, a policeman. Fearing no one will ever believe her, she runs, far, and often. Someday she will have to pay for the death, but until then she has much she wants to teach her son, Leonard.

In his first five years she teaches him about love and how hers for him will never end. When Leonard first meets Mitch, a neighbor, while Pearl is at work, she is suspicious and protective. Over time she lowers her defenses about Mitch and asks him to watch Leonard while she works. On one of these occasions she doesn’t return.

Mitch believes Pearl has run off to live her life while he contends with her son. Leonard knows better. His mother hasn’t returned because she can’t. He senses her presence in different ways and knows it is the ”˜forever love’ she taught him. Mitch and Leonard bond while waiting for Pearl’s return. Running his own business from home, Mitch is available to Leonard. He takes him to the doctor to have his asthma treated and learns his eye condition could one day lead to blindness and must be closely monitored.

Mitch’s biggest shortcoming is his affair with the wife of a client. Leonard may not see well physically, but he can see this relationship isn’t good for Mitch. He wants a love for his friend like his mother taught him about and tries to teach Mitch about forever love. As the little boy grows up and Mitch matures, their bonds keep them together as tightly as any family. The man wants to buffer the boy from the pains of the world, and the child wants the same for his grown friend. They grow and mature together, and even though space may separate them as the child becomes an adult, their love for each other remains constant.

Told in alternating points of view, this is a story of love and faith—and how sometimes you have to work at believing in love. A novel by the author of Pay It Forward about how love is payment in itself. Well worth the sweet predictability to get to the heart.

Armchair Interviews says: Lovely story about love—and not familial love.

Author’s Web site: http://www.CRyanHyde.com