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

It was not easy for Eileen but easier than she feared. She found AA meetings to attend. Through AA she found a therapist in White Plains who she began to see each Thursday. While Eileen knew Kerry was keeping an eye on her, she never felt threatened or infantized by it. It comforted her. Neither Kerry nor Tommy nor anyone else pressured her or insisted on knowing how-are-you-doing? The only other person she spoke to about it in any detail was Betty, who proved to be the helpful soundboard in the family and who kept their conversations between the two of them.


On Christmas, less than two weeks after the Chicago trip, Eileen was nearly back to the self everyone saw on Thanksgiving and the whole gang—the Neallys and the Nelsons—headed up to Chappaqua.


Chapter 37