Euston Summary

An Irish woman living in London, Mary sees a television program about not holding grudges and decides to forgive her family after twenty years' separation and to fly home for Christmas. The decision makes her feel lighthearted for the first time in years. Rather than surprising them, showing up as the Prodigal, she writes first, picturing her seventy-five-year-old mother's joy at the good news. Her mother's last letter, begging her to return, had lacked the old sureness about everything. Mary has filed all of her mother's letters but answered none of them, having nothing to say.

The falling out had occurred when her parents rejected a suitor, Louis, who they believed was only after her £1,200 fortune. Mary had been twenty-nine and a plain-faced spinster, working in the post office, when she meets Louis. People in town, including her father, tell her that she...