Two Lives

In Niagara Falls, Father Sam is forced to examine his past behavior when he receives a letter from a man accusing him of sexual misconduct 40 years earlier. Sam Ryan is the aging parish priest at Blessed Sacrament Catholic church in Niagara Falls, Ontario. He receives a letter from Christopher Merchant, now living in Saute Ste. Marie, he a former child congregant and part of the church's youth group then, written in clearing his soul before he dies asking if an incident from their time together several decades earlier was a situation of child sexual molestation. Although Father Sam outwardly denies any impropriety from that incident, he is forced to examine his life and his past behavior as he goes about his current life, which may trigger some emotions to that past behavior. These include: liaising with his sister Sheila as Sheila handles the care for their aged mother; counseling non-congregants Chelsea and Quentin who want to get married in the church, but who he feels may not be ready to get married not by what happens in their sessions but what he spies outside the church; having constant interactions with Michael, the church's guitarist, he a divorced father who is having struggles with his ex-wife; dealing with a man named Reza, who is arranging his mother's funeral, she who objected to his homosexual orientation; and running into another former child congregant, Marcie Bell, who fondly remembers her time in the church's youth group and with Father Sam. —Huggo