Author

Almost twenty years ago on an early spring day in Missouri, I was outside with the children, wrestling Jack into his infant carrier in the front seat of the car while Stephen waited to climb into the back.

On that Saturday afternoon before the ice and while the exterminator was still roaming around her house, Jane phoned Diana Tunbridge to tell her that she was coming over, after all. They arranged to meet halfway across the meadow so that they could walk back together to Diana’s where Jane would spend the night. By the time she had collected her things and packed her backpack she was overtaken once again by that familiar dolefulness that assailed her whenever she deserted her mother and father. It worried her to leave them to their own devices even when she was angry at them. They were still sitting quietly in the living room when she came downstairs, and she stopped in the doorway to say goodbye, but both Avery and Claudia were abstracted, and her mother was a little irritable.