Corbett's Daughter

Daniel Corbett is playing piano in a Toronto restaurant during Sunday brunch and dreaming of his daughter, who just turned fourteen but whom he hasn’t seen for a decade. That’s because Corbett isn’t just a piano player. He’s also a parolee, a former heart surgeon who, ten years before, was convicted of slitting his wife’s throat. As Corbett works the keyboard, an attractive woman, Nora, strikes up a conversation and then requests “Happy Birthday” for her daughter, Ellie. He looks over at Nora’s table. Ellie is the picture of the daughter in his head. Same birthdate, same age, going by her middle name. Could she be his Becky? Nonsense. And yet . . . Nora is a single mom. After years of urging from her mom to find and marry a decent man, a benchmark for Ellie when she starts dating boys, who does Nora unwittingly pick? A man who murdered his wife! Nora will never date again! So much for Ellie’s benchmark—unless Corbett is innocent. Nora’s mom decides she’ll be the judge of that. No point sending away the last good man—unless she knows he isn’t. Thus starts the dance. Lies, half-truths, betrayal. Loneliness, bitterness, anger. But also, warmth, love, humour, guts, and goodwill. Is Corbett innocent? Is Ellie his daughter? Will Nora finally find the love and fulfillment she seeks? As Corbett struggles to prevail, he comes to suspect that family may not be so much about how you’re related as how you relate.