Suzanne Nelson was raised just outside of San Francisco. A Stanford grad and varsity runner, she heads to New York City for law school. She is gay, but has come out to no one. In New York she meets Kerry Neally, a New Yorker and fellow student. Who is straight. First in a study group and then as a pair, they find themselves become attached to one another. And have to work out that Kerry thinks she's straight. Eileen is Kerry's mother. She is a widow, and meeting Suzanne helps her leave the shell into which she placed herself after her husband died. And she comes to the attention of two men. One a widower. The other divorced. And love intevenes for her choice. With Suzanne settled into her New York life, she turns her back on her parents, who turned their backs on Suzanne's aunt Mary, a gay woman disowned by her parents and brother decades before. She, too, lives in New York and she and Eileen attempt to get Suzanne's parents to understand their daughter. Kate Nelson comes to New York to reason with her daughter. As eventually does William, her father. The story is about how the members of what becomes a large New York family deal with themselves, each other, and love.

The Neallys

She saw my puzzled look. “Suzanne asked me if she could tell you that story and the other things about me and I said I have no secrets. She told me that she wanted you to understand how screwed up her family is and, I guess, to give you the sense that she is not like that.”


“I mean, her father was at Stanford and I thought he was able to think for himself. I thought he would realize that I was trying to avoid putting him between me and our parents. But he didn’t even open up the letter. He knew it was from his only sister and he didn’t open the letter.


Chapter 13