Sacrifices of the Heart

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SYNOPSIS

          Kate Weston, in her late 30s, is a successful defense attorney whose specialty is juvenile criminal cases.  She has a knack for connecting with troubled adolescent clients – although all of her other relationships leave much to be desired.  There’s not a lot of warmth radiating from this woman.  The man in her life, Adam, is trying to cement their relationship into something meaningful, but Kate is unwilling to meet him halfway.  She has also practically cut her brother, Ryan, and father, Thane, out of her life.  Kate is this way, simply put, because of a traumatic childhood experience:  At age 7, she discovered the body of her mother, who had committed suicide.

          Kate is going to have to confront old demons, however.  Ryan calls from the family farm in rural Woodsville with news that their father might be suffering from early stages of Alzheimer’s.  Thane Weston is a stubborn man, however, and refuses to go to the hospital for tests that could explain his increasing memory lapses.  Begrudgingly, Kate agrees to go home for the weekend – for the first time in two years – to try to talk their father into being examined.

          Before leaving, Kate fights with Adam and takes on a new case (involving Allison, a 15-year-old accused of abandoning her newborn baby).  When Kate arrives at the Weston farm, things are frosty between her and her father.  She has always blamed him for her mother’s death.  It’s also awkward for Kate when she’s with Ryan and his family (wife Laura, son Zane and newborn daughter Brianne).

At first, Kate isn’t convinced that Thane’s forgetfulness is a serious problem.  But during her stay, his erratic behavior adjusts her thinking.  With Ryan’s prodding, Kate also begins to question her own childhood memories:  She always had perceived Thane as being an inattentive husband and father, the reason for her suicidal mother’s unhappiness.  Now, while examining her family and her past with new eyes, she becomes aware that Thane wasn’t the villain she had believed him to be – and that her mother’s emotional problems were rooted in what today would be diagnosed as postpartum depression.

Kate returns to the city, to a breakup with Adam and to her unsettling court case of the teenage mother who abandoned her baby.  When Kate’s young client, Allison, refuses to identify the father of her child, Kate’s suspicions turn toward the girl’s overbearing stepfather (although her boss at the law firm is reluctant to make statutory rape charges against the man who’s paying for their legal services).  Meanwhile, back on the farm, Thane gives everyone a scare when he goes missing for several hours.

Rushing back to Woodsville (while trying to stay on top of her court case), Kate spends time with her father in the hospital, who is officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.  Kate and Thane begin to bond in a way that they never had.  She feels remorse for all of the years they spent apart – and she is determined to make the most of their remaining time together.  During Kate’s time away from her case, meanwhile, troubled young Allison commits suicide – and the girl’s mother, wracked with guilt, exacts revenge by killing her husband, who had indeed been raping his stepdaughter.

In response to all of these developments, Kate decides to take a leave of absence from her work, mostly so she can spend quality time with her father.  Also as a result of these experiences, she is a new woman.  She’s warmer, less troubled and finally emotionally equipped to have meaningful relationships – with her once-estranged family, as well as with Adam, who is back in her life.  Finally, Kate Weston is whole.

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