Sitting Quietly and Milk Years Summary

Our narrator, Lily, begins this novel in the present, writing as an elderly widow, who is doing the traditional quiet sitting expected of someone her age . She realizes that her need for love has caused every problem in her life since childhood, beginning with the breaking and binding of her feet at a young age. Going along with what was expected of her, hoping to receive love in exchange, she has lived her entire life doing what was expected, with the exception of writing in nu shu with Snow Flower, her "laotong," or "old same." She still has the fan upon which she and Snow Flower wrote and adorned the promises and thoughts of their lives. Lily realizes now that the heart-love between her and Snow Flower was the most important love in Lily's life...