“Audrey,” Jasmine says, now that things have settled down a little, “you still have to tell us about your life. You moved back here, obviously, but what else?” Ah, yes. Here comes the moment. “Right,” I say. “Well. I married Clay, who never got over his first wife. I’ve got a stepdaughter who’s hated me every minute of every day since we met. And . . . grand finale . . . I have early-onset dementia and plan on killing myself before it gets too bad.” The three of them freeze, their eyes wide. “Sorry,” I say. “Was that a buzzkill?”
Hoo Boy! This was a tear jerker. But thanks to the last 2 chapters and an epilogue, it ended on ahappy and hopeful if occasionally poignant note, I have learned to trust my favorite authors, which includes KH. They may make you cry buckets or make you want to spit fire at the behavior of their villains (or heroes!) but they never abandon you holding all of those negative emotions at the end.
The book is about 4 women and how their lives diverged for the worse following a horrible car crash on the day after they graduated from highschool. Or was it for the worse? It was certainly not the futures they fondly dreamed of and had every chance of realizing. Each was damaged and their futures encumbered by the effect of the accident: Two from shame and guilt, one physically, and one from the loss of a beloved mainstay and home.
We start out with Audrey welcoming her 3 best friends from high school to her home. She has invited them to stay upon the occasion of their 25th high school reunion. They were once the “core four” but we learn very quickly that they have been estranged ever since the day after they graduated. They blame themselves and each other, one way or another, for a horrific auto accident they caused which changed the trajectory of all their lives. It also killed one of the town’s most beloved citizens, Doctor Kate, who also happened to be Audrey’s mother, and friend and maternal figure to the 3 other girls as well. The inciting incident for Audrey to gather the core four together, hopefully for a reconciliation, is her diagnosis of early onset dementia. Before she loses her faculties completely and turns into a “potato person”, she wants to mend the breach and restore the deep and life-defining bonds they once shared. The book takes us through what each of the women are dealing with in their present lives and explores their past to show how they got to where they are. None of them are in a good place.
After the accident, Audrey leaves her Vermont home to attend the Savannah School of Art and Design as had been long planned. But without her home and her mother she feels isolated and alone. Her happy perfect family and home, which was the basis of her whole identity, is no more. She is lost. Her father remarries and her beloved brother is wrapped up in medical school and the obligations that followed on the way to a successful medical career. So after graduation, she stays in Georgia and 10 years later meets Clay, a widower with a 5 year old child. Clay is kind and a good guy, but kind of “vacant” as her brother Stephen says at one point. The marriage becomes vaguely unsatisfactory. She fiercely loves her difficult stepdaughter, but Mathilda (or Kylo, as “they” like to be called) hates and resents her, egged on by her late mother’s parents. When Audrey inherits her childhood home, Bitter Creek Farm, she finally returns home to Vermont with her husband and stepdaughter, in tow.
Jasmine was the first of the three to be befriended by Audrey in elementary school. She was from the wrong side of the tracks with a drunk for a mother, but was academically brilliant. Upon graduation she was accepted at Princeton with nothing but success on her horizon. But it never quite happened. The whole town blamed Jasmine for the crash as she blamed herself, because she was driving the car that killed Doctor Kate. What did one expect from poor white trash, after all? She ended up working on Wall Street, but was not a super star. One day, she meets Oscar, who was a super star. They marry, have 3 daughters, and as the story opens, Jasmine is a stay at home mother and a lady who lunches. She has left the rat race on Wall Street only to get sucked into keeping up with the social climbing wealthy wives of Greenwich, CT. Her once happy family is now disintegrating, her husband is cheating on her, his business is in trouble (the kiss of death in her world), and her 3 girls are out of control.
In highschool, Micah was the beautiful one. Some, not as PC and kind as I am, might also have called her a slut and a drunk. But now in her early 40s, she owns and runs the town’s favorite bakery, is happily married to a wonderful guy who is still crazy about her, and the proud mother of 24-year-old Logan. But, other than still being a little too fond of the vino, Micah has a long held secret that is about to be exposed and probably ruin her marriage. Micah was supposed to be the designated driver the night of the crash, but, in despair after learning she was pregnant, got drunk anyway.
Beck was the last to become part of the “core four.” She came from a military family, and, used to moving from one place to another, developed an outgoing and fearless personality. She was also very tall and a star basketball player, winning a full ride to UCONN. A stellar college career was practically guaranteed, probably followed by a career in the WNBA. But her leg was crushed in the accident and that was the end of that. She was the one who was supposed to keep an eye on their designated driver and keep her from drinking. She didn’t. This left inexperienced and nervous driver Jasmine to drive the group home. (It is strongly hinted that Audrey was under the influence of a date-rape drug.) Beck is now a very successful and respected Casting Agent, with Oscar winners among her many clients. But her powerful position in the entertainment field is on shaky ground when she joins the group for their reunion. She has been accused of sexual harassment (totally false), the tabloids are having a field day, and her calls to clients and colleagues are not being returned.
As each of the women navigate these turning points in their present lives, we trace their pasts leading up to the reunion weekend. As they repair their friendship, there are many revelations, and some surprising twists. And in the middle of it all, we have Audrey. We live with her thoughts and journey, even as she fades in and out of losing her faculties. Just as she did with Lauren’s idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in Pack Up the Moon, Kristan Higgins makes you feel like you are front and center with everything the victim is feeling and experiencing. As much as I love her lighter happier romances, Kristan is brilliant when it comes to her more serious novels.
When I saw that Kristan Higgins had changed publishers and this new book was being offered at a heavily discounted price, I admit I was worried. I still do not understand what is going on there, but I need not have worried about the quality of her work falling off. Not that I really was. This is her most powerful book yet. Not as funny or romantic of course, but though not front and center with those aspects, she can still bring the laughter as well as the tears. And yes, there is a romance.
