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 hard through his trousers. Kate could almost feel it pulse through the material. She wanted to touch it and she wanted it to be inside her. As much as he wanted to fuck her, she wanted him to fuck her. He reached behind her back and unzipped her dress, stepping back so she could remove it. She stood in her lingerie and shoes in the foyer.


“I need water. Can I get you some?”


He stepped aside so she could pass to her kitchen, and she was conscious of walking across her apartment in just her lingerie. It felt awkward. That he was staring at her ass as she walked felt awkward. She reached into the cabinet and took two glasses down, letting the water run for a minute to get cold and then filling them. “Ice?” she asked over her shoulder. “Sure.”


Chapter 82