At Christmas, Paul and Marie, Marty and Hanna come to stay in St. Paul with Mother, at Ellie’s house. These siblings, along with Line, have Dad’s nonconformity, while Ellie and Kristen blend into their surroundings more. Mother is enjoying her status in the city. The next day they drive up to their lake cabin, have a meal around the Ben Franklin and enjoy the stars and dancing on the thick lake ice at night.
The Cohen family, including Poppa, gathers from California, Minnesota and Edinburgh, where they have each spent the school year, in Tuscany at a rented villa. Sitting in the evening sun, Poppa tells about his film club, Stephen about his historical studies, Heather about wine-making. They visit Siena and Florence, with Siena being their favorite. They find delectable food at a restaurant in Greve.
Marty is lonely as she tries to become her own impeccable self. She practices tai chi several times a week in class, enjoys Chinese food with the international mix of class members and reads about Taoism. She has taken off a year, but is about to begin another job at a big architectural firm. She and Matthew go to a gallery of fine art photographs. Matthew tells her stories and they share a bottle of wine.
Paul and Marie go down to St. Paul where Mother lives, to meet Hanna’s new partner, Faith. Hanna and Faith plan a cheese-making operation at Faith’s family farm in upstate New York. Marie’s sad background surfaces, as well as Mother’s growing disability. An unseasonal heavy snow arrives at Halloween, which Paul enjoys. It does prevent Hanna and Faith from flying out as planned, however.
In Edinburgh, Line visits a garden with her friend Kerry. Another evening, Fern brings home a friend who is pregnant and hasn’t talked to her family about it. Line counsels her to do so before she makes any decision. The Cohens wrap up their two-year sabbatical with a trip to the Isle of Man, where they walk the ancient royal way of the Manx kings in honor of the 1,000 year history of their parliament.
Marty is surprised when Doug Henderson takes her out for dinner. They talk about wine-making, their families, finding themselves able to be quite honest with each other. Marty is proud of her ambitious architectural firm, but she also has a strenuous tai chi practice. She experiments with eating less and believes that she is finally developing the “sound mind in a sound body” advocated by the Romans.
Line and Ivy repeat the Reiki mantras before going to work and school. Line is impressed with the idea of “hands of light.” She uses it on her hospice patients, a woman who is 98 and dying, and a young man with AIDS. She counsels the families of the dying as well as trying to ease their suffering. At night she picks up Ivy at the roller rink, who says Mackenzie, Doug Henderson’s wife, was there, pregnant.
Marty and Doug have a brief affair, which shakes Marty to her core. Doug takes her to a wine-tasting at a San Francisco hotel. But he is not free. When Doug’s wife has her baby, even though it is not Doug’s, he accepts the little boy as his own and tells Marty the affair is over. He can only be friends. Marty understands she must let go, must let Doug have his life and his family.
At Thanksgiving, Paul and Marie go to Bemidji where Grace is now awaiting her fourth child. Paul helps deliver meals out of the St. Phillips church, before coming home to their own meal. Gerald’s Ojibway mother and aunt are also present. Marie insists on singing after dinner. When they get home to Ely, Paul takes his dog out for a walk around the lake, thinking about the fishers he saw that year, and evolution.
Line, Stephen and Poppa all go to Minnesota for Christy’s graduation, very proud. Mother and Paul are also there. Christy is planning to go to Peru, in the Peace Corps. Two weeks later the California relatives convene for Heather’s graduation from U.C. Davis in enology. Doug Henderson brings Marty. Heather will go to Chile for an internship. Line is sorry that her children all seem to settle so far from her.
Paul, Marie and Mother drive out to visit Hanna in the Mohawk Valley in New York. They help with Faith’s family cheese-making operation and watch Hanna act in The Importance of Being Earnest. Paul and Marie make excursions up into Quebec and finally down to Concord, to Walden Pond. Paul realizes that Thoreau’s observant science no longer has the value it once did.
Two French friends stay with Marty, and they all go down to the annual tai chi week at a youth camp, once a logging camp in the redwoods. Four practice periods a day make it intense. After a few days, when their legs have stabilized, Marty enjoys the camaraderie, the lightness. They are a forest of mirrors, reflecting each other. When they get back to the city, there is more practice and Ted spirits Marty away one night.
When asked what she wants most for her birthday, Line realizes she wants to spend time with Mother. She and Ivy go out to Minnesota, where Mother, Paul and Marie are spending the summer. Mother spends her time in a recliner looking out at the bird feeders and the lake below, less mobile all the time. But she, Line, Ivy and Marie go into town to a frothy tea shop where they have cinnamon rolls and tea.
Marty is thrilled by a discussion of Flaubert after a dinner with friends, intellectual fodder. Doug comes to the city and they go to a new art museum. They talk intimately, but “you can’t build your life around your love,” Doug tells her. Marty works, does tai chi, finding absence and silence refines her love. She cannot deny it. She calls and finds that Mother is living with pain, in her back and her joints.
Ellie finds Mother dead of a heart incident on a September afternoon. All of the Mikkelson siblings gather, except Line, who is in Europe. Paul speaks for the family at the large funeral at Mother’s church. Afterwards they each take some of Mother’s possessions. Paul and Marie take Marty and Hanna to the airport, talking about their family legacy. Mother had relied on Paul, a pleasant weight which has now lightened.
Line picks up her daughter Heather and her friend from Chile, Pablo, at the winery on a rainy night. Pablo tells them that Heather has agreed to marry him. They want to be married soon, when Pablo’s parents can come. Line is even more surprised to learn Heather wants to become Catholic. The wedding is simple, but special, at Line’s house. Line believes Heather will be happy, but sadly will move to Chile.
Marty picnics at the arboretum with her cousin Sarah, her partner and toddler. When they leave, Marty takes tea at the Japanese tea garden, thinking about how much her preoccupations have turned toward the East. At work, Marty feels pressured, but happy. She is competent and useful in the high powered architectural firm. She also takes a calligraphy class, copying a meaningful Shakespeare sonnet.
Paul and Marie wake up in a campsite on the grounds of a Renaissance Faire. They have a paying gig there on the weekends, singing songs from Elizabethan times. They have researched these songs carefully. Back at home, Paul works at the computer lab at the high school. He walks with Archie, thinking about the cabin (which is not in good shape), his position, evolution, Christianity.
In Edinburgh for another guest lectureship, Line and Stephen have a cottage with a garden, but Line does feel she has little responsibility, waits for the mail. When they go to Glasgow for research, Line stops at a botanical garden and meets an older woman who has some relationship to Stephen’s research. He laughs at how Line finds people, while he has to rely on books!
At the cabin in the northern woods, Paul and Marie and Grace’s family have a cookout at the end of summer. When the Hickman’s leave, Paul and Marie pack up, but are surprised by a visit from Christy and his girlfriend. They all have a political conversation late at night over cocoa. Christy loves the progressive Paul Wellstone, whom he has worked for. Marie sings as everyone packs up and moves on.
Marty enjoys planning the Christmas party for her office with her committee. They have an elaborate spy skit planned, to take place at an art gallery. Marty is being pressured at work to be more “strategic.” She does her usual round of work and tai chi, spending an afternoon with Doug at Thanksgiving. The party comes off well. At her apartment, Marty’s neighbor is taken away, leaving a horrific apartment mess.
In Edinburgh, Line enjoys the blooming spring at Kerry’s cottage. Kerry joins her and Stephen for dinner, decrying the situation in Bosnia and Kosovo. She is working with refugees. Paul calls Line to say that Marie is having a double mastectomy, wants to talk about her treatment. Line goes to Minnesota on her way home to help. Marie wants to refuse chemotherapy and radiation. Line washes Marie’s hair.
Doug asks Marty to meet him at a restaurant near the Bay. He asks her if she would be willing to move in with him, at the ranch in Boulder Creek. Mackenzie wants a divorce, doesn’t want custody of the kids. Marty quits her demanding job and has a few months of openness before arrangements are made. Doug takes her to a bed and breakfast, and an amazing Japanese-style cedar enzyme bath and massage.
Marie longs for warmth and sunshine as winter comes on. Paul makes arrangements to drive down to Oaxaca for the winter. The car manages, they find a place to stay and have a quiet time, going to mass in the mornings, resting and listening to music. On St. Cecilia’s day, the whole town turns out for a procession behind a statue of the saint. Marie loves this saint, and she and Paul wend their slow way with the others.
On New Year’s Eve, 1999, Line and Stephen gather their daughters, Marty and Doug’s family, and Alice and Poppa for a party. Several people go to an evening service of peace, and the rest talk about what kind of year each of them have had. The year, in which everyone is worried about the calendar turning over to 2000, slips away quite benignly nevertheless.
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