It was true; always had been. Friendships were like marriages in that way. Routines and patterns were poured early and hardened like cement.

what shall we drink to?" "How about family?" Stacy said, showing up just in time to pour a fourth shot. "To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost." and she clicked glasses with mom

You couldn't give up you for them. But what if you wanted them more than you wanted a singular powerful you?

I am such a Pacific Northwest girl.

And before you barrel through some idiotic Cosmo girl list of how-well-do-you-know-your-man questions, let me say that I don't know squat about him except that he kisses like a god and screws like a devil.

She'd been criticized for holding the reins of parenthood too tightly, of controlling her children too completely, but she didn't know how to let go. From the moment she'd first decided to become a mother, it had been an epic battle.

A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep into her bones.