When someone is murdered next door, it changes everything about the way you live your life.

When Hugh was ten years old, he walked home from school to find his friends next door crying outside – they had just come home and discovered their mother’s body. She had been murdered.

Now an adult, Hugh has a happy social life and a successful career as an artist in Oakland, California. But even so he is plagued by anxiety, anger, and panic attacks. As he attends therapy and looks back on his childhood, he comes to realize the trauma and stress that the murder next door had on his life, and how it still affects him today.

Does trauma ever go away? Or does it just hang around, in the backs of our minds forever? This thoughtful, powerful memoir explores how one event in childhood can make a permanent mark on someone’s life.