Elaine Gordon’s hus­band, psy­chi­a­trist Neil Gor­don, has very sud­den­ly suc­cumbed to ill­ness. Elaine’s grief is intense, as she and her hus­band spent the many years of their mar­ried life as ​“a cult of two” as described by their chil­dren. The nar­ra­tive alter­nates between Elaine’s per­spec­tive and that of each adult child in turn as acclaimed artist Elaine spends a lengthy vis­it with each of them. Sara is an Ortho­dox moth­er and artist liv­ing in Jerusalem and sup­port­ing her schol­ar­ly hus­band. Lisa, a physi­cian like her father, lives in Philadel­phia and is in the process of adopt­ing a child from Rus­sia. Peter rein­vent­ed him­self when he moved to Cal­i­for­nia for col­lege and has a trou­bled mar­riage. The youngest, Denis, is a lawyer who lives with his part­ner in New Mex­i­co. The par­ents have been total­ly accept­ing of their children’s lives, but in a super­fi­cial way. Elaine is now get­ting to know them anew as she begins this next stage of her life. The descrip­tions of each part of the world are beau­ti­ful­ly detailed. Despite some redun­dan­cies, this sto­ry is heart­break­ing and the rela­tion­ships among the sib­lings are real­is­ti­cal­ly drawn.