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

And then, as it was late, the bride and the groom rose to leave, the bouquet was tossed (caught by we-will-not-say), and with kisses and hugs and fond farewells, the happy couple were off to the airport for a honeymoon in Paris, and those left behind gathered their belongings and went home. Except for Eric and Lynn, who could not resist the chance to play on and sing along with the Steinway until being told by the club manager that the lights were about to be turned off. And except for Kerry and Suzanne, who had waited into the night to take care of Suzanne’s baby brother and someone who had all the hallmarks of being the love of his life and who, this being Kerry and Suzanne, did not waste the extra time, spending it in an alcove off the ballroom until hearing the final notes of Eric’s playing and Lynn’s singing.


Kate. She was also there, sitting off to the side where she could watch and hear her son and his own love and happier than she had ever been.


Chapter 71