Signal Fires

Benjamin Wilf is a doctor, husband, and father. His peaceful family life in Avalon is disrupted when his children, Sarah and Theo, are involved in a car accident that kills another teenager (Misty). Ben decides to never speak of what happened, effectively trapping his family with a secret. He regrets not having spoken openly about what happened as his children become adults. He watches them grow up, move away, and make poor decisions. Ben feels disconnected from his children, a disconnect heightened by his wife Mimi’s Alzheimer’s. Left on his own, Ben takes stock of his life. Ben’s character is very much tied to Avalon because the town represents the hopes and dreams he had for his family. His house is representative of happy and sad memories, all of which he would never give up.

Ben is a caring man whose devotion to his family keeps him centered. He has empathy for other people, as demonstrated by his generosity of time and support for Waldo Shenkman. Like Waldo, Ben is sensitive to metaphysics. He doesn’t know how to articulate his theory about time, but senses that time is nonlinear. This reveals that Ben is a deep thinker whose life experiences have pushed him to consider past, present, and future as a loop.