Marty goes to Santa Cruz to help out while Line studies for, and takes, the tests necessary to get her California LVN license. Marty takes the kids on a picnic, which quickly turns into a Lord of the Rings trek, to her surprise. Once home, Marty helps set up the new company, Design Logic, which intends to bring computerized drafting to architects. She and her friends are very excited about it.
Paul and Marie drive to Quebec, so Paul can meet Marie’s family, including her daughter Grace. Many of them, farmers, speak little English. But Paul is helped by a brother-in-law, Pierre, who explains the complicated history and current politics of Quebec. Paul can see with his own eyes how the small community is ruled by a pretentious Monsignor, who influenced Marie’s early troubles.
In Santa Cruz, Line and Stephen have added an au pair from Kenya, Cathy, to their busy household. Stephen is working on a biography of Bayard Rustin. Line works several evenings and every other weekend, now that all the kids are in school. At the community hospital, Line sees ordinary patients. She also notices more than one gay man with skin lesions and pneumonia.
Marty and Erik go to a hot springs for the weekend, even though they have just moved into a new house in the East Bay. Marty loves the house, unpacking while Erik explores, especially the bars! A neighbor comes over to introduce herself. But Marty is confused. Is it enough to live for yourself in beauty? When she misses the city, she has a literary brunch with friends in San Francisco.
When they hear that Dad has been diagnosed with liver cancer, Paul and Marie, Hanna and Kirsten arrive home to help Mother plan. Paul believes that he has the most chance of being able to stay with Dad during surgery as Mother is teaching. Paul stays near the hospital and things go well. Dad is optimistic, but cancer is usually a death sentence. Paul tries to be to Dad the caretaker Dad once was to him.
Marty and Erik plan to go to Minnesota at Christmas, but before that they enjoy an epic Halloween party at Lana’s. In Minneapolis, Marty feels the full weight of Dad’s illness and aging. All the siblings, even Ellie, are there, except for Line. Erik finds a historic bar in St. Paul; Hanna gets them to put on a Chekhov play; and Marty goes cross-country skiing with Paul, in a beautiful twilight full of rabbits and their tracks.
When Line arrives in Minnesota at the beginning of summer, Dad lies in state at the cabin. Paul, Marie and Hanna have packed up the parsonage and moved their parents to their retirement home at the lake. They manage to get Dad down to see the lake once, but he is very weak. They take him to the hospital, his kids gather around and he is lifted out of life. Line, Mother, Uncle David and the others visit the quiet, grassy cemetery where he will be buried.
That summer, Paul and Marie, Marie’s daughter Grace, Hanna and Mother try to reclaim the emptiness Dad has left. Mother will live during the winter at Ellie’s new suburban house. When the women go down to the Twin Cities to shop, Paul takes the canoe to explore Ely, at the edge of the Boundary Waters. He camps on an island, thinks about science, life and loss, and dreams of moving to Ely with Marie.
Overcoming the loss of Dad was perhaps hardest for Marty, who hadn’t gone home at his death. She works dutifully, but economic woes are affecting the new company, Design Logic. Jill displays her frustration at a meeting, sensing the rapid growth of technology all around them. Marty is fascinated by West Coast culture, but wishes she had some work of her own. Erik is no better off, becoming more depressed.
The Cohens, Line and her four kids and Stephen, attend a non-violent protest at Lawrence Livermore Labs, singing and making origami cranes. When Mother and Hanna come to San Francisco for a visit, Line and Marty take them to Ghirardelli Square. Line’s girls don’t get to the city often, either, so they are thrilled by the chocolate factory.
Paul works on the literature review for his master’s thesis on sand hill cranes in a university library in the Twin Cities. He is thrilled to come home and find Marie waiting up for him. They talk about everything, partners. Together with Grace, they go to choir practice at the Lutheran church in Bemidji. An extraordinary choir director has made this exciting for Paul, and Marie gets to use her wonderful voice.
Just before Christmas we catch Marty on her way home from work. Things are changing, Jill and Peter have left and Marty is sure she must look for a new job. She and Erik drive down to Big Sur, stopping to see Line’s family for a meal. The Cohen’s house is festive, the kids growing up. On the coast, Marty and Erik stop at the Nepenthe, go to the beach, stay at Deetjen’s. But they find it difficult to talk.
Paul opens up the cabin for Mother and Hanna for the summer, but then plans to move to Ely. He and Marie cannot figure out why this makes Grace unhappy, but Hanna finds it is a guy she has fallen in love with. The move goes well and they celebrate with strawberry rhubarb pie! Both Paul and Marie have jobs. When they return to the lake for Mother’s birthday, Grace becomes engaged to her Gerald.
The Cohen family is all affected by the widely-publicized famine in Ethiopia, deciding to forego holiday outlay this year. Christy comes home one day having helped pull a dead young surfer from the ocean. Line goes with him to the funeral and the paddle-out. At Hanukkah, Poppa arrives with news. He has begun to plan his retirement for the following year and wants to move to California!
Marty sets up personal computers at her new job in San Francisco. She has some experience, but not much backup. It scares her. In the evening she goes to an Al-Anon meeting, surprised to find that alcoholism has a family pattern and that she has willingly participated in it. She must begin to speak, rather than keeping silent. She agonizes over this, while watching Miami Vice, Erik asleep beside her.
When Erik doesn’t come home from a ski trip, Marty doesn’t worry right away. But soon she hears from Kirkwood that people there haven’t seen him either. With his brother Brad, she goes up to Kirkwood, finding nothing. They must wait. Marty goes to New York for a training class, visiting with Meredith and then meeting Hanna at the oyster bar under Grand Central station. At home there is no word from Erik.
Line takes Christy to the airport where he gets a flight to Minnesota. He is 18 and has ideas of his own. Marty, whose husband’s body was found in the Sierra, arrives for a visit, exhausted, and now alone. Then Poppa comes, teasing the little girls and telling them all he wants to buy a new house in Santa Cruz with an in-law apartment for himself. Line and Stephen are glad he wants to live with them.
Christy’s exploration of Ely sparks Paul to think more about work. He is doing administrative work for an outfitter and substitute teaching during the winter. Marie returns from Bemidji where she has been helping her daughter Grace with a sick baby. They practice a song Marie has written, Paul on guitar. They do a set at a local bar on the weekend to some acclaim.
Marty has moved to Russian Hill. She is stubbornly single, trying to find out why she gives up too much of herself in relationship. She goes to Angel Island and lies in the sun. When Meredith comes for a visit, they both go down to Carmel for a staff retreat. Marty internalizes the coming conflict she sees in the principals. She meets her old friend Nathan for a drink. When he kisses her, she is moved, but resistant.
Line engineers a trip to San Francisco for her girls. She takes Ivy on a long walk through Berkeley, tasting as they go. Heather goes to art museums with Poppa, and Fern goes to work for the day with Marty. They have pizza for dinner, and they all go to a movie Poppa is fond of, The Princess Bride. Poppa and Line are house-hunting in Santa Cruz, Poppa leaning toward an extravagantly beautiful house.
Paul and Christy take a last camping trip on Burntside Lake before Christy leaves to work on the Democratic presidential campaign. Soon after he leaves, Leon and Marcia, from Alaska, visit. Paul and Marie walk them around Ely, pointing out landmarks and ending up at the co-op where Marie cooks. Marie has made food into a science and Paul has taken to gardening.
Line and her family are getting used to the new house. Line spends extra time at the hospital as her friend Ben is dying of AIDS. She sweeps her patio, thinking about the tensions surrounding her young girls. When Fern doesn’t come home one night, Line can’t sleep. She and Stephen sit up and Stephen asks whether Line would like him to explore overseas options for a sabbatical. Fern returns safely, to everyone’s relief.
As a part of her job, Marty goes down to Los Angeles to load computer software at a new branch office. She stays with Nathan, whom she is in love with, but admits he doesn’t really love her, doesn’t want to share his daughter. At home she is happy to hear from Hanna. When she has tea with her old friend Lana at the Clift Hotel, Marty is surprised to find herself telling Lana she is thinking of leaving her job.
Paul comes to the lake in September to help Mother close up the cabin, appreciating her quiet dignity. When she leaves, he and Archie, his dog, walk into the back country behind the road, observing all they can. When he picks up Marie in Bemidji, they drive home, Marie singing and trying to learn a Leonard Cohen song. Paul helps pack out a group going into the Boundary Waters, and he and Marie play pool.
During the 1989 earthquake, Marty, at work in a reinforced building, doesn’t feel it much. Outside traffic is gridlocked and power is out. She walks home, and gathers with her neighbors that night for snacks and wine. Two weeks later, she drives down to Santa Cruz and is thrilled to spend the weekend with Line’s family. Back in the city, Marty investigates a tai chi class and joins, shy and diffident, but determined.
On Mother’s 70th birthday, all of her kids and their families gather at the cabin. Line, Marty, Hanna and Line’s girls accompany Mother out to the cemetery where Dad is buried. The men plan an “Iron Man” canoe trip down a chain of lakes into Leech lake. Kristen bakes and frosts the cake. A storm is coming, but there is time for a cook-out before it breaks. Afterwards everyone watches, enjoying the thunder and lightning.
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