Summary

In Chapter 87, three years earlier, when Al went away to college, she had told her mother at the airport that Eleanor probably would not be seeing her for a while. She explained she needed time by herself to figure things out.

Eleanor felt regret and shame that she had not noticed how deeply Al’s struggles with her gender impacted her. Eleanor, however, had been caught up in her own sorrows with Toby and end of her marriage.

After Al’s graduation from Stanford, she spent two weeks at the farm before she left for a graduate program in medieval studies. Al told her mother she would not be coming home for a long time. She explained she needed to be around people who did not know her before she transitioned. Eleanor realized she was saying goodbye to her daughter.

In Chapter 88, Al...