Marty, having moved into Doug’s complicated household on a mountain near Boulder Creek Vineyards, negotiates life with Doug’s four kids. Doug builds bunk beds with their help, grills sandwiches and they all organize for a camping trip on a nearby beach south of Santa Cruz. Scrabble on a foggy afternoon occupies them, but they go down to the beach for the brief appearance of the sun later. Marty does tai chi.
Paul’s wife Maria is so weak he is spending all his time looking after her. They sell the house in Ely and live in the apartment below Ellie’s house. They wake up one morning to find their dog Archie dead. Paul drives him to their lake property, where he buries him. Choir practice, as always, is a highlight of the week. And Ellie buys Paul and Marie plane tickets so they can again spend the winter in warm Oaxaca.
Line and her daughter Ivy take care of five-month-old Sophia, Fern’s daughter. Fern is at a conference, looking for work. Poppa and Line delight in the four-generation household. At Thanksgiving, the Cohens go up to the Boulder Creek winery to celebrate. Doug rotisseries chickens over an outdoor fire. Jeremy brings out the wines. Fourteen people sit down to dinner. And afterward there are many pies!
Doug and Marty take the kids to Minnesota for a family vacation at the Mikkelson family cabin. Marty and Grace each have four young kids to worry about. Doug takes many of them on a canoe trip. Paul is solicitous of his wife Marie, who is fading. The kids put on a play. Paul plays Spanish guitar. Afterwards everyone goes in swimming, including Marty, who puts on goggles and swims under water.
In September, when planes are diverted into the World Trade Center in New York, Line’s family draws close, but each of them continues to do what they have been doing. “Otherwise, the terrorists win.” Ivy shows Line the costumes she is designing for dance productions. Stephen and Line go for a picnic with Paul Lee. They discuss their earlier hopes for the university, as opposed to what it has become.
At Christmas, Paul brings Marie up to Ellie’s celebration on the floor above their apartment. She is very weak by this time, under hospice care. When she dies, Paul goes through all the proper motions, but feels confused by time. He gives into mourning briefly, but then walks around St. Paul, works as a website designer. His sisters try to cheer him up, sending Christy over to play chess.
Marty and Doug drive their kids down to Santa Monica to stay with Mackenzie and Clay, her new boyfriend. They will go to Disneyland on spring break. Doug and Marty drive up the coast, stopping in Ojai, where Jeremy worked at the Ranch House, at Sanford’s innovative winery and enjoying time with just the two of them. They discuss the kids. The kids have a great time at Disneyland.
Line and Stephen, with Poppa and Ivy, march in San Francisco against the Iraq war. Back at home, Line goes to her watercolor class where the teacher demonstrates different washes. As she sweeps the wooden decks, Line thinks about each of her kids. Stephen suggests they call Christy, as he is thinking of writing a book about Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a plane crash, devastating Christy.
Marty and Doug do a week of tai chi camp, but it is hard for them to concentrate. Doug worries about the harvest, Marty about the kids. That summer Ellie had proposed rebuilding the cabin and the Mikkelson siblings had agreed. When Marty and Doug pick up the kids, they have a day of rock climbing and ice cream making before going back to school, Zoe to high school in Santa Cruz.
The family cabin at a northern Minnesota lake is bulldozed in October. Paul takes photos and puts them up on a website for his siblings to see. He has pizza and watches television with Grace’s family. When he goes to St. Paul in December, he, Ellie and Bruce bend their heads over the sketches for the replacement cabin. It will be a log home, on two levels, one designed for Bruce and Ellie, and one for family.
Ivy drives off to Los Angeles to live with a man she has not known long, and take a job at an art school. Line is flustered by it, but knows it was bound to happen. Fern brings her new husband and the precocious little Sophie for a visit. They live near Phoenix and work on an archaeological site. They all drive up to the Boulder Creek winery, where Doug is making a paella meal, the winery very busy.
Doug, Marty and the kids fly to London, then take the Eurostar to Paris in what Doug says is a “tale of two cities.” The food in Paris is wonderful, they walk by the Seine and the Hotel de Ville where the Musketeers lived. They take in a few paintings at the Pompidou. They learn a modicum of French and a bit of Cockney rhyming slang on their way back to London. The Henderson motto is “All for one, and one for all!”
Paul settles in to the newly-built cabin in October. Christy comes by for an evening, a bit dazed by the upcoming election. Paul goes to a meeting of the lake association with older people who live on the lake all year round. He feels out the social possibilities as well as staking out the place he wants to observe ecologically. He tells everyone he is looking for a dog and a caramel-colored puppy soon turns up.
In Santa Cruz, Poppa, Stephen and Line make up a small household. Line worries about their health and prunes her rosebushes in January. At Christmas they had joined Doug and Marty for a treasure hunt with the kids in San Francisco. They call Heather’s family in Chile on the new Skype video call system. Heather has two small bi-lingual sons who sing for them. She admits to being homesick.
The Hendersons live in Santa Cruz full time while the kids are in high school. The twins want to surf, and Zoe wants to play soccer. Marty stays in town too, and Doug travels up the mountain to the winery every day. Doug and Marty join his partners to watch the movie Mondovino, about global winemaking. The partners argue about the wine they are producing. Marty prods Jason to write down his homework.
Paul and Andre, Grace’s middle kid, take the canoe out into the freezing open water at the edge of the lake, testing how early in the year they can go out. It is Easter and Paul attends a service in Bemidji, and on Sunday, his own Lutheran church. In the morning he goes out to the back lot, considering how the returning birds and the greening of the spring are in sync with each other, citizen science by observation.
Stephen and Line attend a performance of Cabaret, which Ivy and Marshall are working on in North Hollywood. When they get home Fern comes with her little Sophie, and a day later, Heather arrives from Chile with her three children. Line has been feeling uncharacteristic lethargy every once in a while and a cramp in her hip makes walking difficult. They all share a beach picnic with Marty’s family.
At the end of a Christmas hunt, the Henderson kids find themselves on Maui. Marty and Doug have kept the secret they had been planning all year! They stay in a cheap hotel, and take off every day to look for waterfalls, go snorkeling and exploring. One night Doug tells Jason he is not his biological father, though he is in every other respect. They all enjoy the warmth, the tastes and sights of the island.
Line and Stephen get together with friends from Brazil and Cuba for dinner. Stephen is about to retire, though he will keep writing. He is increasingly helping Line with domestic tasks she can’t manage. She is panicked, afraid she won’t be able to work in the world. Marty does tai chi with her. Christy brings his girlfriend Emily for a visit. Political talk cannot be avoided, but they also play hearts.
Paul welcomes Hanna and Faith from New York, with their two newly-adopted children. They visit the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca. Back at the cabin, canoeing, Faith talks of the Leatherstocking tales and Paul realizes how different her background is. Ellie and Bruce also come to the lake and the difficult adoption tale is recounted. It’s been a year, though, and things are better.
All of a sudden it seems to Marty that everything is about college. The Hendersons drive over to Merced where Nic is intrigued by the new University of California. Natasha wants to go to Cal Poly. Zoe is already at a small college in Montecito. Jason wants to go to a culinary academy of course. Marty is impressed especially by Natasha’s college essay. She and Doug will move back to the ranch.
Line struggles for acceptance of her MS disability. She and Stephen go up to San Francisco for a session in self-healing with Meier Schneider. It loosens Line up, but she knows it won’t last. When they get home, there is Ivy. She has driven up for her own reasons, one of which is voting. The Cohens vote the next morning. Ivy and Line bake pies, and when Barack Obama wins, they all celebrate.
Returning from their last remaining aunt’s funeral, Paul and Ellie are given a cache of letters written by Marshall Mikkelson to Dad. Paul ponders this and the other stories he has been involved in in his life. Time tells true, but stories and questions lead to others. When Paul gets home, two of Grace’s sons arrive on bicycles, having ridden 30 miles. Paul makes them lunch and they discuss climate change.
Marty has heard there will be a flash mob at the farmer’s market in Santa Cruz, so she and several of the kids drive down the mountain. Ivy is in it! All four Henderson kids are home from college. After they leave, Marty persuades Doug to take a few days and drive to Tassajara hot springs. Marty reflects on her life in beauty while enjoying the great food, the September warmth and the springs.
All the Mikkelson kids gather, at least briefly, at the lake cabin. Honoring their parents with remembrance, they drink California wine. They watch a video made 20 years before, rueing their older-looking bodies. Late at night, they play poker while listening to jazz. The next day, Line finally consents to making her slow way down to the dock to watch the sunset. Paul plays old songs, and a new one, on his guitar.
