Ambrosia

By night Regina Bugbee runs an outreach center near Bellevue Hospital for lost and vulnerable men who fear the larger shelters. By day she cares for the impaired man who would have been her husband, had he not been tragically hurt running toward—not away—from the collapsing Twin Towers. She struggles through this tangled life, aching to reclaim the impossibly blue sky of that cruel and jarring day, five years before, when the future arrived.Then one winter night, the future arrives again. This time it’s in the form of a baffling, unconventional and possibly insane stranger who claims to be, of all things, a Greek god. He’s brought to her center by cops after a skirmish with one of her regulars. She thought she'd seen it all, but he’s too clean, too sober, and too articulate to fit the usual mold; he’s odd and quirky and—above all, fascinating. Despite the skepticism of her coworkers, friends and therapist, Gina digs into his incomprehensible past in an attempt to decipher his mystery. She enlists the aid of another client, who overcomes his initial dislike and befriends the stranger. Together this mismatched pair embark on a bizarre and convoluted trek through the glories and agonies of lower Manhattan. And even though she cannot seem to pin him down, Gina continues to hover over this enigmatic stranger with as much diligence as all her clients, all the while sloshing forward in her quest to find contentment in her own life. A treasured and admired coworker wants to help her fill that void, but Gina cannot bring herself to abandon the hero she once loved. The stranger has a thing or two to say about that. And he needs something from her, just one small thing, to find his own clarity: he needs her to believe that he is indeed who he says he is. Easier said than done. 3