Summary

Lucy and Ariel are now living on Shelter Island. They plan, on paper, a timeline for the next few years of their lives. Lucy's new company will grow, Ariel will become a foreign correspondent, they will have a baby. They spend time turning their house into a dream home by cultivating the garden and they fall in love with small-town life.

Ariel is 32 but still feels like she is in her late 20s. She knows her mother had already given birth by her age, but things are different for her generation. None of her close friends have babies yet. "All of us assumed we still had time for reinvention" (69). Ariel feels incredibly successful with her career and her marriage, and she is content to leave motherhood for the future. She believes she can decide exactly how she wants to live and credits that belief...