Summary

The day after the invasion of Iraq, Jana returns to Los Angeles for her mother’s funeral. She has a secret: she is adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia. She has not even told Henry, who is too frantic balancing his own two children with his and Kimiko’s career schedules. The quartet will soon move back to San Francisco, where they have accepted a chamber music residency. In the midst of the move, Catherine got drunk and ended up in the LA River. Carl asks Jana to pick up the flowers, but it makes her feel guilty and contemptuous to drive past the war protestors.

Jana did see Catherine a few times when the quartet’s tours took them to the west coast, but she understands that Catherine only ever wanted to be loved. She would speak of herself except...