When they were in their twenties and thirties, we’d all be close. . . . But by then they’d have their own lists of concerns and duties, their own oil changes, doctors’ appointments, and business meetings, maybe their own kids. Very possibly their careers would pull them a thousand or two thousand miles away, leaving Jeannie and me to grow old the way my parents had, buoyed by a phone call once or twice a week, flowers on Mother’s Day, hectic visits. Why were we all so proud of a style of living that splintered the family like so much dried-out firewood?
