Book Description
Just as Eleanor Becker, 59, an attendance counselor at a high school in southern Oregon, is considering what to do with the rest of her life, her daughter-in-law dies and she has two adolescent girls to raise. Her divorced daughter and another granddaughter already live with the Beckers, and Eleanor's husband is staying in a travel trailer after a quarrel. The other grandmother, a widow, thinks the girls should be with her, and one of them vehemently agrees. The girls have been home-schooled (i.e., had no education); Juni is lost at sea in middle school, while her math-brilliant sister, Tilde, thrives. Nick, the grieving father, doesn't even bother to get dressed most days, and finds escape in sleep and weed. Yet, all the adults have a lot to give, and give they must, to put the world back together for the children, be a family and hope to be happy. Small town, large hearts.