From Baida's O. Henry Award-winning title story about the final days of a Catholic nurse, to "The Reckoning," in which a corrupt university president's family is torn apart by his downfall, the nine stories collected here give candid accounts of people from various walks of life and the events that unite and divide them. The contrast between deterioration and strength (both physical and spiritual) is a common theme for Baida, who spent 20 years working for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; he himself finally succumbed to hemophilia in 1999. "Family Ties" is told from the perspective...