Page "The Blackwater Lightship" Paragraph 1

The story is described from the viewpoint of Helen, a successful school principal living with her husband and two children in Ireland.

She learns one day, that her brother Declan, who is homosexual, has been a sufferer of AIDS for years, and refused to tell her until then.

He asks her to deliver their mother and grandmother the news.

This presents a challenge to Helen as she has had minimal contact with either woman due to deeply buried conflicts relating to Helen's past and her father's sudden death when she was a child.